Recent reports from Bloomberg,  Reuters, and JAMA offer a clear picture of how Big Pharma continues to drive up drug costs in the U.S., particularly for cancer and rare disease treatments. The articles make clear: drug companies set the price, raise the price, and block competition, while patients and health plans shoulder the cost.

The Bloomberg piece highlights how cancer drug prices continue to rise, even long after a drug hits the market. Between 2020 and 2025, one drug’s list price increased more than 30 percent to $214,000 a year.

Read the full Bloomberg article HERE.

Further, a recent research letter published in the Journal of the American Medical Association lays out an unending trend in higher launch prices and successive price increases for oral anticancer drugs covered by the Medicare Part D program.

A Reuters analysis found that the list prices of new drugs have more than doubled over just four years. The piece states:

“The median annual list price for a new drug was over $370,000 in 2024, according to the Reuters survey of 45 medicines. In 2021, the median price was $180,000 … The median launch price was $300,000 in 2023 and $222,000 in 2022.”

Read the full Reuters article HERE.

These articles reinforce that Big Pharma sets the price of the prescription drugs, and the price is the problem when it comes to Americans facing difficulty affording their prescription drugs.

Learn more about Lowering the List Price HERE and explore why the price is the problem HERE.

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PCMA is the national association representing America’s pharmacy benefit companies. Pharmacy benefit companies are working every day to secure savings, enable better health outcomes, and support access to quality prescription drug coverage for more than 289 million patients.