Bookmarking this. A friend of mine and I argue about this sort of thing all the time.
Obviously, these drugs are worth only what one is willing to pay for it.
If you’ve got one foot on a banana peel and the other in a grave, then they’re worth the world to you if they are what’s keeping you out of that grave.
The real question is when do the prices on drugs become usury?
There are laws banning loan-sharking and usurious interest rates. Should we be putting limits on usurious drug prices? $475k/yr for a Kymriah treatment for certain types of blood cancers, Yescarta costs $373,000. The brain tumor treatment called Alecensa is priced at nearly $160,000 a year.
This certainly feels like loan-shark type prices.
The question becomes what are the manufacturing costs, shelf life, and volume(s). I would think a 100% markup is probably enough, most medical device makers charge 350% markups.