The price of drugs

Recently the Pharmaceutical Industry has been rocked by one scandal after another.

We frequently hear of someone else who has been refused the medicine that they need because it is ‘too expensive’.

It seems that this pricing is sometimes opportunistic on behalf of the drug companies.

For example, last year they were charging $600 for the Epipen antidotes to allergic reactions in America, while our NHS negotiated a price of about $70 for the same product!

Drug companies are able to charge runaway prices because new drugs are protected by legal monopolies and this makes the pharmaceutical industry the most profitable in the world.

At the same time, millions of people around the world suffer and die from treatable conditions because they cannot afford to pay for expensive medicine.

The companies claim they need to charge high prices to recoup their research and development costs. But nine of the top ten pharmaceutical companies spend more on marketing than on research and development!

Also, the majority of innovative early-stage research is publicly funded.

At 7.30pm on Wednesday, November 1 at RISC, RG1

4PS, there is a meeting, ‘Sick of Corporate Greed’ which is part of Reading International Festival.

Global Justice Now campaigners and Sibongile Tshabalala, of the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa, will talk about how we can change this state of affairs; how we can put people before profit in the global drug industry. Jackie Oversby Co-ordinator, Global Justice Reading