> This medicine is out of patent; the R&D costs have been recovered. There's no reason for it to cost as much as is does in the US, apart from greed.
So apparently this medicine is used for treating parasitic worm infections, which I imagine is a vanishingly small market in the United States. That means that the costs of tooling up to produce the drug (and producing it to the standards of safety and purity demanded of any medicine produced in the U.S.) must be amortized over a tiny population of customers.
To make a comparison: a commercial Common Lisp IDE runs nearly $1,000 for a hobbyist edition, while you can get professional versions Clion or Jetbrains for $100-400. But there's no patent or other protections limiting competition in the development tools industry. It's simply the economics of making a product that caters to a tiny niche of potential customers.
So apparently this medicine is used for treating parasitic worm infections, which I imagine is a vanishingly small market in the United States. That means that the costs of tooling up to produce the drug (and producing it to the standards of safety and purity demanded of any medicine produced in the U.S.) must be amortized over a tiny population of customers.
To make a comparison: a commercial Common Lisp IDE runs nearly $1,000 for a hobbyist edition, while you can get professional versions Clion or Jetbrains for $100-400. But there's no patent or other protections limiting competition in the development tools industry. It's simply the economics of making a product that caters to a tiny niche of potential customers.