The Cost of Prescription Drugs

The prescription drug delivery system -- how a drug gets from the manufacturer to the patients -- is complicated. Over 4.4 billion prescriptions are written for drugs each year for Americans who then pick up these prescriptions at 60,000 drugstores or receive them from doctors or hospitals or online pharmacies. Chapter 1 is about how Americans pay for prescription drugs and where that money goes. Chapter 2 is about the process, beginning with the manufacturer's development of a drug, the different steps through which the drug travels before arriving in a patient's hands, how this is paid for, and what the costs are at each step along the way.