The pharmacists fighting high drug prices

Throughout the country, issues of health care exclusivity and rising drug prices are being addressed with creative solutions. Innovating new medicines and medicine deliver systems, such as an alternative EpiPen, is proving to be a helpful way to work around these surging prices.

Uganda has the best quality of death among low-income countries, according to the Economic Intelligence Unit. Its success stems in part from the strictly regulated but available supply of morphine, which is distributed by pharmacists in labeled bottles.

Nurse Initiated Management of Antiretroviral Treatment (Nimart) provides special training to nurses, allowing them to prescribe antiretroviral medicines to manage HIV treatment, increasing access among those who need the care. Previously, only doctors were allowed to prescribe the drugs, but since Nimrat launched all 17 area clinics now offer treatment and an average of 732 patients started treatment each month in the first year the program started.

Germany, like the U.S., has a largely private healthcare system that relies on private doctors and private insurers. Like Americans, many Germans enroll in a health plan through work, splitting the cost with their employer. But Germany strictly limits how much patients have to pay out of their own pockets for a trip to the doctor, the hospital, or the pharmacy, making medical debt practically nonexistent.

By working with a nonprofit, Las Libres, in Guanajuato, Mexico, volunteers are helping women access medication for abortions for free. Las Libres organizes the supply chain to get the medication to those in need in abortion-ban states in the United States.

The nonprofit Las Libres in Guanajuato, Mexico, helps women access medication for abortions for free. By working with volunteers like the Old Hippies of San Miguel de Allende, the organization delivers the medication to distributors in abortion-ban states in the United States.

Drug Aid Africa supports low-income Nigerians by providing free medications to help ease burdens of healthcare affordability. The NGO partners with organizations that serve low-income communities, including hospitals, orphanages, elderly care homes, and other grassroots community groups. They provide each organization with boxes of donated medications that are tailored to the needs of the population being served. For example, orphanages receive boxes stocked with the supplies most needed by children. The supplies are mostly bought using cash donations but some pharmaceutical companies also donate materials.

Large pharmaceutical companies may be in trouble as state legislatures nationwide are passing laws that force big pharma to be more transparent about their prices, and forcing the utilization of generic alternatives under Medicaid coverage. Additionally, some states are pushing to allow patients to order the prescriptions they need from companies in Canada who are willing to sell the same drugs at a much lower cost to the consumer. These policies encourage free-market competition that may lower the cost of life-saving medications in the near future.

Even though millions of people around the world rely on drugs like insulin to live, the big pharmaceutical companies often seem to value profit over people, and the costs of critical medications can be prohibitive. A small group of dedicated experts is working to change that, combining their expertise in science, law, and business to manufacture small-scale, generic versions of drugs like insulin that are accessible and affordable to all that need them.

For profit-driven pharmaceutical companies, there is little incentive to innovate with treatments for diseases most often found in impoverished countries, because of an inability to pay exorbitant prices. The Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative works to create low-cost, patent-free treatments for diseases ignored by profit-driven decisions, and has created new treatments for seven diseases.