If you go and read the news on a daily basis...the manipulation and shortage-gimmick is being used on a regular basis now (not just in Europe but in the US as well). All of these companies have figured out ways to make you pay the maximum possible price for a drug.
You can get on a plane and fly into Greece or Albania....to buy what you’d buy in the US for half (sometimes even a quarter) of what you’d typically pay.
It’s the capitalist system at work and they know that they have one-of-a-kind products. The state-care systems (again, it doesn’t matter if it’s in the US or Europe) are limiting what they will pay for particular drug....so you the consumer will have to dig out the cash needed to make up the difference.
Meanwhile the 12-week drug course in the US, where it’s made, is $75,000. About $10,000 more than in Norway.
There are several competing companies that make Hep C cures. Suppose the national health head gets them all in the room, and says OK, guys, what’s the best you can do for me? Do you want the contract for Norway or not? Not surprisingly, he will hear much better prices than this.
These national health systems are supposed to lower costs by bargaining with providers, but here they have clearly failed to do so.