Starter Packs are our best answers to some big questions, and collections of favorite podcast episodes. See them all here.
Starter Pack
Why do prescription drugs cost so much?
It’s a national outrage — one that millions of us struggle with: the unaffordable price of prescription drugs. Here’s our reporting on how drug prices got so out-of-control, and what we can maybe do about it.
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Our patent system is broken
Unlike other many other countries, the United States doesn’t regulate the price of drugs. Whoever owns the patent on a drug gets the exclusive right to make it — and to set the price. Drug companies manipulate how the patent system works to keep those monopolies for as long as possible, and keep prices skyrocketing.
Orphan drugs: How one drug got its $500,000 price tag. (With 99 Percent Invisible)
A mother’s pursuit of treatment for her son’s Tourette’s Syndrome eventually led to The Orphan Drug Act, which incentivized pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs for rare diseases and came with unintended consequences. With help from the team at 99% Invisible, we tell the story of Abbey Myers, the procedural TV show before CSI, and how a company called Fun City Popcorn ended up making millions from a drug monopoly.
John Green and the fault in our patents (part 1)
Widely-beloved author John Green takes us on a journey into the legalistic patent games pharma companies like Johnson & Johnson play to charge sky-high prices for life saving drugs. Specifically, we get into John’s recent obsession: one very expensive treatment for drug-resistant tuberculosis.
John Green and the fault in our patents (part 2)
John Green wasn’t the first person to notice something fishy going on with drug prices. There’s a vast history of activism against pharma companies working the patent system to extend their legal monopolies and keep drug prices high. Plus: Drug patent reform could be coming to a city near you.
The middlemen make it worse
Pharmaceutical companies set the prices. But the opaque inner-workings of a sprawling industry of middlemen — like insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) — incentivize higher and higher prices.
Case study: Insulin, the poster child for expensive drugs
We’ve done a good amount of reporting on one specific drug: Insulin — infamously as expensive as it is necessary for people with diabetes.
The surprising history behind insulin's absurd price (and some hopeful signs in the wild)
To understand the soaring price of insulin, we went back almost 100 years and dug up a story of sweaty Canadian researchers, swatting away flies and doing business with probable dog-nappers, on the way to a Nobel Prize and a deal with corporate pharma.
Wait, is insulin cheaper now?
Senior Producer and “Insulin Correspondent” Emily Pisacreta looks into recent developments in the insulin-affordability world —including claims that insulin would cost only $35. Plus, how the popularity of blockbuster drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy is changing the priorities of insulin manufacturers.
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