Prescription Prices Climb So Drug Companies Can Make More Commercials

If you want to know a good reason why prescription drug prices keep going up, turn on the TV. See those commercials for pharmaceuticals? Hope you enjoy the pleasant music and sweet-voiced narrators. You’re paying for them every time you pay the ever-increasing price of a pharmaceutical.

A study in Canada has found that when pharmaceutical companies market their wares to consumers on TV, online and in print media, the cost of the marketing accelerates the price increases for those drugs. As a result, prescription drug costs increased by 15.4 percent a year in the time period examined by Canadian researchers. Coincidentally, the costs of marketing all these drugs to consumers have increased more than 330 percent in recent years.

The researchers conclude that other countries that are considering following the U.S. lead in allowing drug companies to market pharmaceuticals directly to consumers should get a second opinion. It’s an expensive proposition.