title: Thirty Years of Media Coverage on High Drug Prices in the United States--A Never-Ending Story or a Time for Change?
abstract: In recent years drug prices have increasingly become a topic of debate for patients, providers, payers and policy makers. To place the current drug price debate into historical context, we searched the New York Times and Wall Street Journal from 1985 - 2015 and found that concerns about drug prices have commonly featured in the press over the study period with recently stronger calls for change. Price levels, types of innovations, stakeholder responses, and strategies to address high prices discussed in the media suggest that concerted efforts are required to enable affordable and high-value innovations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Boston, MA, USA. Electronic address: christine_leopold1@hphc.org.
authors.forename: Christine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Leopold
authors.affiliation: Center for the Evaluation of Value and Risk in Health, Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies, Tufts Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: James D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Chambers
authors.affiliation: Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Anita K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Wagner
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research; D003132:Commerce / Q000706:statistics & numerical data* / Q000639:trends; D004345:Drug Industry / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D009524:Newspapers as Topic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014481:United States
keywords: New York Times; US; Wall Street Journal; drug prices; media