Why Is Cyclosporin So Expensive

About the Price of  Cyclosporin

You are probably wondering why the price of cyclosporin is so expensive. Don’t think that is because of company greed. It is the cost of development and research that runs the cost up so much. It costs, on average, 500 million dollars just for research and development of one drug and it takes up to 10 years of work and testing just to get the compound ready. This is the reason that cyclosporin price is so high.

The first step for any drug to reach the market is the discovery of a new compound which affects a specific medical condition. This first step involves much research into the physical and biological properties of this prospective drug as to how it is absorbed into the body, distributed and eliminated from the body and how safe these effects are. These original steps take place in a lab using skin tissue samples and experimental animals. If this hopeful compound shows positive results during the first round of testing, it is then tested on a small group of volunteers to verify the earlier test results plus to gain any additional information.

The last and most important step is to test the compound on a group of people who have the illness that the compound is formulated to treat. Once this has proven successful, an application is filled out and sent to the FDA for approval so that the drug can be manufactured and marketed. It sounds simple, but it often isn’t because not all compounds are approved by the FDA. And those that are might not bring in enough money to cover this expensive production costs. So now you can understand why the price of cyclosporin is so high. However, sometimes when the patent on a new drug expires, then that drug goes generic and the prices drop quite a bit.

Drug companies produce medications which must be sold in order for a profit to be made. And since only 3 out of every 20 bring in enough money from sales to cover the developmental costs and only one out of every three drugs bring in enough money to cover developmental costs of drugs that have failed to make it to the market. So this gives a little better perspective on medication costs. Until the patent expires on cyclosporin, the price will stay the same.

Another aspect of medication prices is that a huge amount of money, millions in fact, are spent on both marketing and educating healthcare providers on the usage of the drug. There are also post-marketing studies that are to be done. Drug companies also make huge donations to charities and provide medications to those individuals and countries who cannot otherwise afford them. This is another reason for the cyclosporin price to be so high.

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