There is often a bleat from the drugs companies and their right wing lobbyists that drug prices are high in the USA compared to other countries because of the need to make profits to develop new drugs. The implication of this is that US patients are subsidizing "socialist medicine".
Now there comes a claim that reverses that. Drug prices are higher in Europe because the companies build in part of the cost of advertising in the US market.
In an interview with The Observer on Sunday Professor Sir Michael Rawlins the Chair of the England's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) made this comment:
'The other thing we have to pay for is the costs of marketing. Marketing costs generally are about twice the spend on research and development.' Advertising to patients was forbidden in Britain, but widespread in the US, and some of that marketing cost was built into European drug prices
The interview has other revealing information on why drug prices are higher than they need to be. Rawlins also had an interesting comment on illegal drugs.