The $800 Million Pill: The Truth Behind the Cost of New Drugs

by Merrill Goozner

Book Overview

Why do life-saving prescription drugs cost so much? Drug companies insist that prices reflect the millions they invest in research and development. In this gripping expos , Merrill Goozner contends that American taxpayers are in fact footing the bill twice: once by supporting government-funded research and again by paying astronomically high prices for prescription drugs. Goozner demonstrates that almost all the important new drugs of the past quarter-century...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520246705
• ISBN13: 9780520246706
• Release Date: October 2005
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 297 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Update needed

In light of the healthcare debate, this book needs to be updated. The third section on Big Pharma is the real critical information part. I guess America likes the idea of heavy advertising and an army of drug sales people for the me-too drugs, reformulated prescriptions at the same ultra high prices, the lack of real innovation, the overlooking of true research dedication for obscure diseases, etc. This book is too important not to go into a new, expanded edition.

Superb, with a clear agenda

I won't discuss the content of the book, as many have already done so. I will merely mention the aspect of the book that struck me the most - Mr Goozner's suggestion that there doesn't need to be a pharmaceutical industry at all. The amount of work that took place at NIH and NIH-funded labs on so many key compounds surprised even me, and I work in Big Pharma clinical development. The perfidy of companies like Burroughs-Wellcome, who resisted working with live HIV after the NIH was ready to hand over a nearly complete clinical program to them for AZT, was breath-taking. The newest industry propaganda website on medical advances (I refuse to provide a link) highlights the development of AZT, Taxol, etc with the implied message that they provided those medicines to the public. Read this, and you won't be able to stomach those Lane Armstrong Schering ads any more.

Definitely worth reading

I found this book fascinating, informative and thought-provoking. It examines how the current system for bringing new drugs to market works, what the short-comings of this system are, and how it could be improved to get more benefit from the money that tax-payers and users of health services (whether by paying directly for drugs or through insurance premiums)contribute.Although this could have become a really dry exercise in economics or a political tirade agains drug companies, instead it contains a series of stories which track the development of some of the major "breakthrough" drugs in recent history. We are introduced to people who dedicated their lives to finding a cure for a single disease and read about the many set-backs and struggles that they had to go through to achieve this goal. The medical information that is explained in the course of these stories was, for me, one of the most interesting aspects of the book

Highly Recommended

There is so much BS coming out of the pharmaceutical industry these days that it's refreshing to read something that has the ring of truth to it. The author has done his homework.

Highly Recommended

This is a superbly researched and well written book explaining the scamming of America by Big Pharma. We have the only government in the world which allows this industry to price gouge the citizenry. Please read this book and tell your friends.You can find out more about this issue at www.rxsanity.org