A recent article published on the American Council on Science and Health suggests that price increases by pharmaceutical companies is a complex strategy that takes into account a number of variables.
“Reducing prescription drug prices is like a game of whack-a-mole, you stamp out one factor and unintended, relentless other consequences follow suit to maintain equilibrium,” the author writes. “Due to the sheer complexity of the pharmaceutical ecosystem and its many cogs in the wheel, one concession merely shifts changes as each component adapts to enhance its own margins.”
The author says “knee-jerk disdain” for pharmaceutical companies is counter-productive, and fails to “solve all the many hands in the cookie jar … .”