Here is a read on drug pricing. I have read similar reports so I think this hits pretry close to the truth
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/11/26/why-prescription-drug-prices-have-skyrocketed/?utm_term=.f08ef2a876bb
....Here is how our current system works. It starts with a structure that looks healthy on the surface. Health plans pay their PBMs based on the extent of the discount that a PBM can negotiate with individual drug companies. In theory, this should encourage the PBM to drive prices down. After all, entities should bargain hard when their pay is tied to how much of a discount they can negotiate.
The problem? Drug companies raised their prices so they could give a greater discount. This increases how much of a “discount” the PBM can claim to have negotiated, and the payout to the PBM. It is a little like a department store raising prices right before a sale so the sale discount looks more appealing.
All of this might not be so bad if no one paid the high list price. But many people do. Many plans make patients pay full drug costs until they meet their deductible, and other plans require coinsurance — both of which are based on the list price. Many people still do not have coverage for prescription drugs, even if they have health insurance. Thus, people are forced to pay the full price at various times. Worse yet, the entire structure encourages drug companies to compete not by cutting prices but by offering higher prices...
...When the FDA approved a new drug in the dry-eye market, the company offered a plan in which attractive deals in the glaucoma market would be available for those who also gave favorable treatment to the company’s dry-eye medication. According to one Medicare plan administrator quoted in the complaint, given Allergan’s bundling scheme, a competitor could give the new drug away free and the numbers still wouldn’t work.
What does all of this mean? Patents and exclusivities are intended to incentivize innovation in the drug industry, providing a time-limited monopoly to recoup costs followed by vigorous competition to bring the price down to competitive levels. Instead, drug companies are manipulating the system, often recycling and repurposing drugs rather than inventing new ones. In fact, 78 percent of the drugs associated with new patents were not new drugs coming on the market but existing ones. The cycle of innovation, reward, then competition is being distorted into a system of innovation, reward, then more reward....
...At the end of the day, drug companies are able to use financial incentives to ensure that as lower-priced alternatives enter the market, they cannot gain much of a foothold. The companies have simply found a way to operate within the system to their own greatest advantage. Can one really expect anything different from profit-making enterprises?...