No drug-price cap

Regarding the My Word column, “Tell lawmakers to rein in drug costs,” on Feb. 19 by Nancy Rudner and Julie Kessel: There are drawbacks to drug caps.

Why are drug prices so high? Because it takes years and billions of dollars to develop one new drug and the invested losses must be recouped.

With new technologies, companies can develop new drugs that were not possible years ago. The great new drugs come from small new companies. New anti-cancer and rheumatoid-arthritis drugs are coming, but the costs are horrendous, and the drugs have taken 10 or even 20 years to develop. Investors have put billions of dollars into small companies they believe have a potential drug that will be accepted by the Food and Drug Administration.

But many of these startup companies go bankrupt. Billions have been lost by investors who gambled with them. Only a small percentage of the companies with new drugs are finally approved by the FDA.

Most investors in biotechnologies are playing the odds that they are smart enough to pick one of the new companies with new ideas. They suffer many losses but pray they may eventually have a winner that gives them a reasonable return on all their investments over the years.

If you start putting caps on drugs, investors will not fund new experimental drug companies, and as a result, new drug advancement will cease or be curtailed.

Ron Brockway Celebration