The costs of drugs

A lot of people complain about how much drugs cost in America--$400 a year, $4,000 a month, drugs that can cost $10,000 a year (like some immunosuppresants).

Do you know how much it costs to develop a drug, on average?

$802 million dollars.

Over 10-15 years.

That's a lot of money, and the drug companies pay for failures, over and over. Drugs just don't magically appear. They need years, even decades, of clinical research and testing trials. Only a scanty few make it through the rigorous FDA approval process.

How many scripts would it take to pay back the R&D investment? A whole lot. More than some drugs will ever see.

So the next time you complain about high drug prices, think about this--the reason we have the drugs at all is because some of that money goes back into R&D, to make new drugs to save lives.