pharmaceutical pricing

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

the process by which manufacturers, regulators, payers, and governments determine the prices at which medicines are sold and reimbursed, balancing the manufacturer's need to recoup research and development investment against the need for affordable patient access and efficient use of public health budgets; pharmaceutical pricing systems vary dramatically between countries, from the US market-driven model with limited price regulation to the reference pricing and health technology assessment-based systems of European nations; major pricing controversies have centred on the extraordinarily high prices of new cancer drugs, gene therapies, and rare disease treatments, which can exceed one million dollars per patient; the debate encompasses issues of innovation incentives, patent protection, parallel imports, compulsory licensing, and the ethics of pricing life-saving medicines beyond the reach of most patients