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Patent abuse and the high cost of drugs

Jan. 1 isn't just a day for making New Year's resolutions and watching football. It's also become the day when the pharmaceutical industry unveils price increases, more or less en masse.

By Joe Nocera | Updated on January 10, 2018
The 9.7 percent increase in the price of Humira in 2018 represents an added $1.2 billion to the health-care system. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Jan. 1 isn’t just a day for making New Year’s resolutions and watching football. It’s also become the day when the pharmaceutical industry unveils price increases, more or less en masse.

The good news, as a number of pharma and biotech analysts have noted, is that the increases for 2018 are smaller than in the past. According to Deutsche Bank’s Gregg Gilbert, between 2013 and 2015 — that is, before Martin Shkreli jacked up the price of an AIDS drug from $13.50 to $750 a pill and made rising drug prices a national issue — the cost of drugs was rising more than 20 percent a year.

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