Look how Novartis and other drug companies are pricing their cancer drugs:<p><a href="https://www.change.org/p/secretary-of-health-and-human-services-protest-high-cancer-drug-prices-so-all-patients-with-cancer-have-access-to-affordable-drugs-to-save-their-lives" rel="nofollow">https://www.change.org/p/secretary-of-health-and-human-servi...</a><p><i>Prices have increased more than tenfold between 2000 (average price $5,000-$10,000 per year) and today (average price of new cancer drugs exceeds $120,000 per year).</i><p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/15/opinion/why-drugs-cost-so-much.html?_r=0" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/15/opinion/why-drugs-cost-so-...</a><p><i>Novartis, the company that makes the leukemia drug Gleevec, keeps raising the drug’s price, even though the drug has already delivered billions in profit to the company. In 2001 Novartis charged $4,540, in 2014 dollars, for a month of treatment; now it charges $8,488. In its pricing, Novartis is just keeping up with other companies as they charge more and more for their drugs. They know we can’t say no.</i><p><a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/health/cancer/utterly-broken-drug-market-high-cost-surviving-cancer-n369261" rel="nofollow">http://www.nbcnews.com/health/cancer/utterly-broken-drug-mar...</a><p><i>Lauren Baumann is one of the lucky ones. Though she has cancer, chronic myeloid leukemia, it is manageable, as long as she takes a daily pill called Gleevec. Gleevec is considered a wonder drug, turning Lauren's leukemia from a death sentence to a disease she and thousands of others can live with. The problem is, even with health insurance and a full-time job, Lauren can't afford the monthly co-pay for Gleevec. It can be as high as $2,000 a month — twice the average mortgage payment in the U.S.<p>"I feel like you get punished," says Baumann. "I didn't ask to get cancer; I didn't ask to get sick. I was 26 and I was perfectly healthy."</i><p>This is essentially extortion due to price inelasticity of demand. $9,000-$12,500/month to survive, for the rest of your natural life! Patients+insurers have to pay whatever price the companies ask. For something as crucial as a life-saving drug, maybe the prices shouldn't be set only by market forces? Maybe generics should be allowed for import after patents expire the first time around?<p>(There are analyses of drug discovery costs around, and even after all those costs and reliance on basic research funded by taxpayer money, pharma companies make a very healthy profit. Much of the money goes into marketing, which we wouldn't need so much of in a system similar to the NHS which approves drugs for dispensing countrywide.)<p>Please sign the above Change.org petition (first link) and spread it! I normally don't make appeals, but this is one truly egregious case of unethical profiting.<p>An international panel of 115 doctors co-authored a paper decrying these ridiculous prices and offering 7 solutions, including allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices once again (which they now aren't allowed to!):<p><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2015/07/23/155-angry-doctors-propose-7-solutions-for-terrifying-cancer-drug-prices/" rel="nofollow">http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2015/07/23/155-ang...</a>