Drug prices defy gravity, doubling for dozens of products

Over the years, he has paid more than $140,000 from his retirement savings to cover his share of the drug's price."People with this condition are being taken advantage of by the pharmaceutical industry," said Harford, 84, of Tucson, Arizona. "They haven't improved the drug; they haven't done anything but keep manufacturing it. How do they justify it?" 

As the pharmaceutical industry, led by Pfizer Inc.'s proposed $100 billion takeover of AstraZeneca Plc, is in the throes of the greatest period of consolidation in a decade, one reality remains unchanged: Drug prices keep defying the law of gravity. 

Since 2007, the cost of brand-name medicines has surged, with prices doubling for dozens of established drugs that target everything from multiple sclerosis to cancer, blood pressure and even erections, according to an analysis conducted for Bloomberg News. While the consumer price index rose just 12 percent in the period, one diabetes drug quadrupled in price and another rose by 160 percent, according to the analysis by Los-Angeles based DRX, a provider of comparison software for health plans. 

Starting prices for new drugs are escalating as well. Today, a cholesterol-lowering treatment for certain rare cases costs $311,000 a year and a cystic fibrosis medicine -- developed partly with funding from a charity -- costs $300,000 annually. Fifteen cancer drugs introduced in the last five years cost more than $10,000 a month, according to data from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Bloomberg reports. 

Analysts, meanwhile, predict the first $1 million drug treatment may be just around the corner.