The prostate cancer drug Xtandi, discovered with taxpayer money from the National Institutes for Health and the US Army, is sold in the US by Japanese company Astellas Pharma at five times the price it is sold in Japan. The cancer treatment retails at $130 per 40mg capsule — which mean that unless the roughly 250,000 US men who suffer from prostate cancer have good health insurance, they will pay nearly $190,000 per year for the lifesaving cancer treatment.
That price tag might seem absurd for a drug invented by the public sector. And indeed, there is actually a law on the books already that could be called upon to stop Americans from being ripped off. Unfortunately, past administrations have refused to use it.
