A bargain? The only reason the price is so high is because the company knows that insurers are generally mandated to provide it. Also, I love this: "Medicaid gets a mandatory discount of at least 23 percent on drugs." _Obviously_ the company just sets the price higher accordingly.
It's pretty tough to evaluate the investments large pharmaceutical companies make in R&D because a lot of the expenditure is through acquisitions and a lot of failed efforts at private companies go uncounted. But do the math on this product: ($84K course of treatment times 3.2 million customers in the US alone) -- or just noting the $55bn total revenue estimate or the $3.5bn they sold last quarter. Compare that to the $2.1bn they spent on R&D last year (less in previous years) or the $11bn they paid for the company that developed the product. It's pretty clear that this is an absolutely monstrous windfall that they can get away with because of the way we've designed our healthcare system.
It's not a bargain.
Also: I don't have data to evaluate your statement that "they often aren't good at sticking to complex drug regimens", but it seems like a gross and extremely callous generalization. Also: it's 2014, we have smart pill bottles, automated alerts, and all sorts of other ways to solve that problem for nearly nothing. I'd refer to some of the other commenters who have noted that companies get richer through treatments than cures.
It's pretty tough to evaluate the investments large pharmaceutical companies make in R&D because a lot of the expenditure is through acquisitions and a lot of failed efforts at private companies go uncounted. But do the math on this product: ($84K course of treatment times 3.2 million customers in the US alone) -- or just noting the $55bn total revenue estimate or the $3.5bn they sold last quarter. Compare that to the $2.1bn they spent on R&D last year (less in previous years) or the $11bn they paid for the company that developed the product. It's pretty clear that this is an absolutely monstrous windfall that they can get away with because of the way we've designed our healthcare system.
It's not a bargain.
Also: I don't have data to evaluate your statement that "they often aren't good at sticking to complex drug regimens", but it seems like a gross and extremely callous generalization. Also: it's 2014, we have smart pill bottles, automated alerts, and all sorts of other ways to solve that problem for nearly nothing. I'd refer to some of the other commenters who have noted that companies get richer through treatments than cures.