OVERVIEW Addressing the challenge of high-priced prescription drugs in the era of precision medicine: A systematic review of drug life cycles, therapeutic drug markets and regulatory frameworks Toon van der Gronde1, Carin A. Uyl-de Groot2, Toine Pieters1* a1111111111 a1111111111 1 Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Utrecht Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences (UIPS), Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands, 2 Institute for Medical Technology Assessment, Department of Health a1111111111 Policy & Management, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands a1111111111 a1111111111 *
[email protected] Abstract OPEN ACCESS Citation: Gronde Tvd, Uyl-de Groot CA, Pieters T (2017) Addressing the challenge of high-priced Context prescription drugs in the era of precision medicine: Recent public outcry has highlighted the rising cost of prescription drugs worldwide, which in A systematic review of drug life cycles, therapeutic several disease areas outpaces other health care expenditures and results in a suboptimal drug markets and regulatory frameworks. PLoS ONE 12(8): e0182613. https://doi.org/10.1371/ global availability of essential medicines. journal.pone.0182613 Editor: Cathy Mihalopoulos, Deakin University, Method AUSTRALIA A systematic review of Pubmed, the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Wall Street Published: August 16, 2017 Journal and the Guardian was performed to identify articles related to the pricing of Copyright: © 2017 Gronde et al. This is an open medicines. access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and Findings reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Changes in drug life cycles have dramatically affected patent medicine markets, which have Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are long been considered a self-evident and self-sustainable source of income for highly profit- within the paper and its supporting information able drug companies.