The $800 million pill : the truth behind the cost of new drugs / Merrill Goozner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Goozner, Merrill, 1950-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Prescription pricing.

Drugs--Prices.

Drugs.

Pharmaceutical industry.

Consumer education.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (304 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Eight hundred million dollar pill

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, 2004.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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 exposé, 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 actually originated from research at taxpayer-funded universities and at the National Institutes of Health. He reports that once the innovative work is over, the pharmaceutical industry often steps in to reap the profit. Goozner shows how drug innovation is driven by dedicated scientists intent on finding cures for diseases, not by pharmaceutical firms whose bottom line often takes precedence over the advance of medicine. A university biochemist who spent twenty years searching for a single blood protein that later became the best-selling biotech drug in the world, a government employee who discovered the causes for dozens of crippling genetic disorders, and the Department of Energy-funded research that made the Human Genome Project possible--these engrossing accounts illustrate how medical breakthroughs actually take place. The

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Introduction

PART ONE. BIOHYPE

PART TWO. DIRECTED RESEARCH

PART THREE. BIG PHARMA

Notes

Bibliography

Acknowledgments

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786612358241

9781282358249

1282358243

9780520939288

052093928X

9781597344500

1597344508

OCLC:

808037855