Why are MS drugs so expensive?

Science writer David Levine provides the latest quarterly Special Report piece, looking at the drug prices in one therapy area that are getting on people's nerves so much that they might prompt drastic action from the White House to bring down the cost of medicines across the board.

In August, Representatives Elijah Cummings, a Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Peter Welch, a senior Democrat on both the Oversight Committee and the Committee on Energy and Commerce,  sent letters to seven pharmaceutical companies requesting information by the end of the month about their pricing strategies for drugs used to treat multiple sclerosis (MS).

The letters were sent to the US pharma subsidiary of Germany’s Bayer (BAYN: DE); Biogen (Nasdaq: BIIB); Merck KGaA (MRK: DE) subsidiary EMD Serono, the US units of Swiss firms Novartis (NOVN: VX) and Roche (ROG: SIX); Sanofi’s (Euronext: SAN) Sanofi Genzyme, along with Israel’s Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (NYSE: TEVA).