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Drug Pricing Explained: The Forces that Shape Prescription Medication Costs

Interactive

An illustration from the playbook Off-Label Drugs: Same Treatment, Different Costs. The out-of-pocket cost for the Lucentis prescription is $2,553 for the patient of an ophthalmology practice.

September 2023

The Drug Pricing Explained website traces the path to market of five vital treatments to understand issues of affordability and access.

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To understand the complex market and regulatory forces that influence drug pricing, NORC partnered with Arnold Ventures to examine five pharmaceutical products, tracing the steps of each drug’s development, commercialization, and sale to patients.

In the interactive, each treatment’s playbook tells a story about how decisions and actions by key supply chain players impact pricing. Many factors determine the cost of prescription drugs. Pharmaceutical companies play a major role, as do government programs, providers, private insurers, and pharmacy benefit managers.


Drug Pricing Explained

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This visualization was created by NORC’s VizStudio, a creative community of experts who turn complex data into compelling visual stories. 

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