Pop Quiz Why Prescription Drugs Are So Expensive

Pop quiz: Do pharmaceutical companies spend more on research or advertising? The answer may surprise you as the price of prescription medicine goes ever higher. These price increases cause many patients to forgo medication, putting millions of lives at risk.

For example, insulin, which is needed by Type 1 diabetics for survival, has nearly quadrupled in price. The price of Lantus, a brand-name insulin that’s a mainstay of treatment as a long-acting drug that helps diabetics stay under good control, saw a 54 percent price increase in 2014 even though it’s been on the market for decades. The simple question is why?

Houston Healthcare Inititiative CO-OP founder and respected neurologist, Dr. Steven Goldstein takes the quiz and teaches the rest of us that a lot of what we thought about drug companies and the prices set by them are just wrong. Learn more at www.houstonhealthcareinitiative.org.