In Reply to: Good news. Rolls-Royce & Bentley are tariff free* posted by mh on May 08, 2025 at 09:26:26
Revlimid is now one of the bestselling pharmaceutical products of all time, with total sales of more than $100 billion. It has extended tens of thousands of lives — including my own.
But Revlimid is also, I soon learned, extraordinarily expensive, costing nearly $1,000 for each daily pill. (Although, I later discovered, a capsule costs just 25 cents to make.)
That steep tab has put the drug’s lifesaving potential out of reach for some cancer patients, who have been forced into debt or simply stopped taking the drug. The price also helps fuel our ballooning insurance premiums.
For decades, I’ve reported on outrageous health care costs in the U.S. and the burden they place on patients. I’ve revealed the tactics used by drug companies to drive sales and keep the price of their products high.
Even with my experience, the cost of Revlimid stood out. When I started taking the drug, I’d look at the smooth, cylindrical capsule in my hand and consider the fact I was about to swallow something that costs about the same as a new iPhone. A month’s supply, which arrives in an ordinary, orange-tinged plastic bottle, is the same price as a new Nissan Versa.
I wanted to know how this drug came to cost so much — and why the price keeps going up. The price of Revlimid has been hiked 26 times since it launched. Some of what happened was reported at the time. But no one has pieced together the full account of what the drugmaker Celgene did, how federal regulators failed to rein it in and what the story reveals about unrestrained drug pricing in America.
What I discovered astonished even me.