If that's the case, then don't forget that a huge part of US drug market is marketing. Those expensive pharma reps are not a usual thing outside of US, and provide no value when it comes to the healthcare system overall.
When it comes to some really interesting drugs, prices and their accessibility are really strange.
Take HIV infection preventing Truvada. The "market" price of 30 pills is $1600 in US. It's a good drug for continuous mass use for Gilead. Instead of making it pretty much ubiquitous as vitamins, they chose to target only US market for the low volume high margins. So... I'm actually annoyed with Gilead over this. I own stock and getting good deals in Europe could get up to 50mil people on daily dose of it. That would push the stock wildly up! With 0 extra marketing, as it's not high on adverse reactions with massive preventative benefits.
When it comes to some really interesting drugs, prices and their accessibility are really strange.
Take HIV infection preventing Truvada. The "market" price of 30 pills is $1600 in US. It's a good drug for continuous mass use for Gilead. Instead of making it pretty much ubiquitous as vitamins, they chose to target only US market for the low volume high margins. So... I'm actually annoyed with Gilead over this. I own stock and getting good deals in Europe could get up to 50mil people on daily dose of it. That would push the stock wildly up! With 0 extra marketing, as it's not high on adverse reactions with massive preventative benefits.