Generic drugs seem to be getting more expensive, though you would
expect that competition and market forces would be driving the prices
down. Many are up in arms about the high prices of prescription
drugs, especially of the newer ones, which are understandably very
expensive to develop. My question: Could a millionaire
philanthropist like George Soros or a consortium of nonprofits buy up
a large generic drug manufacturer and then offer the
drugs at substantially lower prices, esp. to institutions that serve
the impoverished populations? It seems like if this were possible,
then someone would have already tried to do it, but I haven't heard of
it. It seems to me that this would be far more productive than
figuring out how to make the pharmceutical industry lower its prices
without cutting the head off of the goose that lays the golden eggs. |