Why is the cost of biologic drugs so high?

Usually the cost of drugs has to do with development costs and patent rights. As long as they are the only one with the drug, they can charge what they want. They want enough to pay off development costs and get a good profit. Really good profit. And then more than that if they can. That’s because there are so many drugs that don’t come through. A successful one has to pay for a lot of research and development.

THen, in a few years, competitors will come in. Generics will come, and they won’t be able to make money any more. That’s why new drugs cost so much, biologic or not.

To add to @wundayatta I have a bro who is a pharma research scientist for a large firm.
It takes years and years of R&D to even get it to testing phases or even to submitting it to FDA for approval. Not to mention costs of Clinical Trials
There also is the ADR (adverse drug reaction) and liability involved.

Why is the cost of biologic drugs so high?

Pharmaceutical companies like to make a LOT of money.

For Remicade, you are not only paying the price of the drug itself but for the nurses who administer it. But even the drug itself is expensive. I would guess that it has to do with the proteins required to develop the drug. Remicade contains mouse proteins and Humira contains human proteins; I’m not sure how they’re obtained/grown but I would bet it’s complicated.

Everything said may be true, but, it is mostly about profit.
We’re a druggy nation, and easily led to slaughter by big industry.
I plan on just sitting on my deck until the bitter end.
I have NO intention of being drugged for years on end. Nope, I plan on dying a ‘natural’ death, with no ‘heroic’ intervention.

If I can’t ‘manage’ my cholesterol or blood pressure or heart disease by diet and exercise, well..then, I’ll go in grace. ;-)

There is NO pill worth hundreds or more a dose. Nonsense!

@Coloma I really don’t want to get fighty on a thread like this, or with a jelly I so respect, but can I just argue with you a teeny bit? It is really, really easy to say that you’ll never go on certain medications until you’re put into the situation where you’re in tremendous pain all the time, or you can see your body deteriorating before your eyes, and expensive medical treatment, with possible side-effects, is the only hope to stop it…. really, what would you do then? The medications mentioned by the OP (they’re not pills by the way, they are infusions or injections) are used to treat autoimmune disease, which can’t be treated by diet and exercise, and often affect young people who just are not ready to “go in grace” yet…

@Mariah

Of course, nothing is etched in stone, I agree, I can’t say for SURE, til I experience a situation. Point taken. :-) However, I still feel that we are an over medicated society and that it is grossly unfair to make drugs so expensive that only a few can afford them. But..I’m a natural type anyway, I’ll do what I can before resorting to the big guns.