May 30, 2014
The Washington Post had an interesting piece discussing the issues associated with the cost of Sovaldi, a new drug designed to treat Hepatitis C. As the headline tells readers, Gilead Science, the manufacturer of the drug, is selling a year’s dosage for $84,000. The piece notes that many new drugs are now being developed which will likely carry similar price tags.
At one point the piece raises the possibility of price controls, which it implies would be a government intervention into the market. Actually, the $84,000 price is the result of a government intervention into the market. It is due to the fact that the government grants companies a complete patent monopoly, threatening to arrest those who try to compete in selling the same drug.
While patent monopolies are one way to provide an incentive for research and development, they are an extremely inefficient mechanism. Not only do they lead to a situation in which drugs that would otherwise be cheap (absent patent protection, Sovaldi would almost certainly cost less than $1,000) become very expensive, they provide enormous incentives for drug companies to misrepresent the safety and effectiveness of their product. And they do this all the time, just as economic theory would predict.
In addition, patent monopolies provide incentives for duplicative research as other companies attempt to innovate around a patent in order to get a share of patent rents. The article reports that this seems to be happening in the case of Hepatitis C where other companies are bringing similar drugs to the market.
In short, the problem of high-priced drugs is the direct result of government policy. That point should be front and center in any piece that discusses the topic.
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