Prescription drugs are generally the first step in every medical treatment and most developed countries have made a priority of granting access to secure, affordable medicines for their populations. This is done through a national agency or accredited authority that evaluates and compares medicines, negotiates prices and allows products access to the market. The process is transparent and data is made available to a large public.
The absence in the U.S. of some of these steps (no comparative evaluation or national price negotiation) has dire consequences, which I warned about in a book published last year that was co-authored with Pascal Orliac, our co-founder, entitled “Solving the U.S. Drug Conundrum.” Chief among them:
