To the editor:

Why are drug prices so high in the United States? It is precisely because they are so low elsewhere.

When other countries impose price caps and controls on American pharmaceuticals, the implicit threat is that they will steal the patent and produce the drug themselves unless the drug companies “play ball” and sell at deeply discounted rates, rates that often scarcely cover their production costs, much less research and development of new drugs.

As such, the drug companies are forced to shift development costs to the United States through higher drug prices to make up for the governmental blackmail they suffer elsewhere in the world. In the United States, we don’t impose such price restrictions.

If price caps around the world were eliminated, the price we pay for prescription drugs would be much lower than it is today, because everyone would be sharing the high cost of research and development. Not only that, but the increased incentive would accelerate the development of new drugs. This is the direction our national policy needs to take.

The alternative is to impose some price fixing scheme here or simply re-import the drugs from Canada or elsewhere. While this would certainly level out prices, it would also bring research and development of the next generation of drugs to a grinding halt as there would be no one left upon which the drug companies could shift the burden. The bonanza of new drugs would abruptly dry up and we would be left to face the diseases of tomorrow with the obsolete drugs of yesterday.

Galen Thies,

Lawrence