I am sort of going to take the other side of the argument for a second here (please do not lapidate me for it but as a professor this is how my brain functions...I always need to see both sides of an argument).
Big pharma spend 10-20yrs developing new drugs and molecules. They spend millions on R&D, pay the top scientists and researchers, go through 10 different phases of testing until they reach the human trial stage then need to clear the FDA and every other sort of administration...then they have about 2-5yrs on the human testing stage...Where the drug may just be dropped for reasons varying from adverse side effects to not proving it effectiveness...
Finally it reaches a test market and they get the pants sued off of them because someone got a rash, headache or worse, stroke from the product (recent scandal here...5 stroke patients in the final stage of human trails...2 died...product pulled off of the market before it ever got sold).
After all is said and done it is practically a miracle that they ever get anything onto the market at all...
Once they do...they want their money back. And they want it fast. Big time. In bundles and boodles and baskets. Because they have 50 other drugs going through various stages of R&D and testing at the same time. And they need the Market to keep supporting them through all of those.
You do not make a drug like you make a dress...Design it, source it, manufacture it and deliver to the store...that would be tooooo easy.
So big Pharma are playing bingo with every molecule and drug that they bring onto the market..plus they are fighting against all of the copyright laws that release it into the public domain (meaning that any other company can now manufacture and sell it 10 or 20 yrs down the road without ever investing a penny into its development)...so they need to recoup their investment before that happens.
Or they will never put the money, time and effort into making more drugs.
So they need to find a balance...the balance is high prices the first few years for the drugs and then slowly as they reach close to the end of their copyright or trademark (or whatever it is called for drugs) they start to level out their prices so that they become competitive with the upcoming generic version of their drug. Some insurance companies insist on only covering the generic version (which is not always identical and can react differently with different people) which means that they lose out again...so some big pharma companies have bought smaller laboratories that manufacture only generics so that they can cover both ends of the market.
They also fight against Chinese knockoffs that are sold over the internet (very, very dangerous to buy drugs over the internet unless it is from a respected and well known lab) at 1/100th the price.
So there you have their argument...simplified. I do not defend them or accuse them...I just explain.
Hope that this helps to clarify some of the absurdly high price gouging that goes on.
ps...certain countries like Canada & most of Europe that have a Social Medical plan that covers drugs force Big Pharma into lowering their base prices or they will not cover their meds...that is called leverage and it works very well...so many drugs can be bought across the border much cheaper if you have a valid prescription. They even have buses that take people across the border to fill their prescriptions (6 months is the max I think) at more reasonable prices.
Sharon