Doing Our Part as Drug Affordability Concerns Continue to Rise
The pharmaceutical industry is facing pressure against rapidly rising drug costs, and many customers are seeing these costs passed on to them.
Drug prices are rising for several reasons, such as supply chain constraints and higher manufacturing costs.
Despite antagonizing factors, WPRX is doing its part to keep drug costs low for our customers and avoid increases wherever possible. Here’s what’s impacting pharmaceutical pricing and how WPRX is mitigating these rising costs for our customers.
Why the Rising Costs?
Supply Chain Constraints and Shortages
Higher manufacturing costs and supply chain constraints may also play a role in raised drug prices. Once COVID-19 hit, the cost of pharmaceutical transportation went up because capacity was limited. As a result, it decreased the availability of certain drugs, which increased their demand and, in some cases, raised prices.
Shortages are one of the biggest supply chain constraints the pharma industry faces. Shortages of any kind drive up drug prices for key players of the pharma supply chain, and in many cases, consumers are left to foot the increased bill.
Most non-crisis shortages typically begin from manufacturing problems, product discontinuation, inaccurate anticipated demand, or patent expiration. On the contrary, shortages triggered by the pandemic were driven by unprecedented shifts in demand for old and new drugs.
The globalized nature of current pharmaceutical production also leaves the pharma supply chain vulnerable to shortages. While drug manufacturing used to be mainly domestic, today, the US relies on a global supply chain. Disruptions to the local area (when COVID hit, it was lockdowns, understaffing, and export bans) can have massive compounding effects on the global supply of drugs. This highlights the importance of manufacturing drugs here in the US.
Higher Manufacturing Costs
It’s also become more expensive for manufacturers to produce the medications due mainly to inflation, which continued to accelerate in 2022 due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. One of the costs most inflated for manufacturers is energy costs due to a reliance on Russia as an oil producer. Electricity costs for drug manufacturers have seen a tenfold increase due to a combination of the pandemic and the Ukraine invasion, and that’s not the only rising cost. Costs for raw materials have increased between 50-160%, and transportation costs have increased by a whopping 500%.
Many manufacturers pass those price hikes on to their customers and, often, the consumers themselves.
How We’re Fighting Rising Costs for Our Customers
It’s clear several forces are working against affordable drug prices, but Westminster Pharmaceuticals is committed to keeping costs reasonable.
Our costs to create medication have gone up 5%, 10% sometimes 15%, largely due to inflation. Despite this, we have not raised prices. We’ve absorbed the price increase ourselves to avoid it trickling down to our partner network, putting people before profit.
WPRX does everything it can to do the right thing for our partners all the way to the consumer. This ethos guides all we do, from pricing our products and interacting with partners to our superior pharmacovigilance and contract compliance.
To learn more or become a partner, reach out to the WRPX team today.