Costs Prescription drugs are the most cost-effective form of health care, helping people avoid surgery, hospitalization, nursing home care or other expensive treatments. Modern medicines save money as well as lives.
Prescription drugs are only a small slice of the health care pie.
In 1997, outpatient prescription drugs accounted for only about seven cents out of every health care dollar. Pharmaceutical advances have saved millions of lives and billions of dollars. Medicines now in development are the best hope of saving more lives and avoiding more costs . The cost of discovering and developing new medicines to save and improve lives is skyrocketing, while drug price increases remain moderate. Only 1 in every 5,000 compounds tested becomes a marketed drug, and only 3 out of 10 approved drugs make more money than the average drug development costs.