The 60 Minutes piece “The Cost of Cancer Drugs” aired on Oct. 5, 2014. Lesley Stahl is the correspondent. Richard Bonin, producer.

Cancer treatments that genetically modify patients’ blood cells to target the disease have shown amazing results in clinical trials. Now drug companies and biotechs must overcome big hurdles to get them into hospitals, including their potential cost.

60 Minutes, the most successful news program in American history, just took aim at the extraordinarily high ($100,000 per patient per year) prices charged for cancer drugs. The pharmaceutical industry, which only provided canned statements and badly thought-out explanation via the president of its lobbying group, came off looking callous and insensitive. Here’s what 60 […]

In response to recent reports that the cost of some generic drugs has been unexpectedly rising at a rapid clip, two members of Congress have launched an investigation and asked 14 generic drug makers to providing data about what the lawmakers called the “escalating prices they have been charging” for generic medicines.

With the California-based drug manufacturer Gilead Sciences planning to roll out another hepatitis C medication, academics said Wednesday that policy changes are needed in the costly drug market so the interests of patients, health insurers and pharmaceutical companies align.

A raft of new cancer drugs promise better, longer-lasting treatments with fewer adverse side effects — but their high cost is a growing concern.

In an effort to blunt the high price of hepatitis C treatments, France plans to selectively tax drug makers when the total cost of their medicines exceeds a certain amount each year, according to Reuters. The government says a “progressive contribution scheme” has been designed to ensure all patients can access new and more effective treatments, while […]

Winston Churchill famously described an appeaser as “one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.” Today, in a very different context, his remark captures the plight of the American pharmaceutical industry.

After recording the best launch of any drug in history, it looks like the pace is starting to slow down for Gilead Sciences’ Sovaldi — the new $84,000 hepatitis C cure that’s sparking a new focus on specialty drug costs.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization and an outspoken advocate against runaway drug pricing for lifesaving HIV/AIDS and other medications, has teamed with the National Coalition on Health Care and others on the ‘Campaign for Sustainable Rx Pricing’ to spotlight what the group characterizes as “unsustainable and abusive” prices for some medicines.