Imagine Being Affected By A Rare Disease

Problem Imagine being affected by a rare disease and the only option to battle it, is to buy a drug that costs over half a million dollars. Would you buy it? Governments and consumers are being affected by the high prices of the drug Soliris developed by Alexion. Alexion is a global pharmaceutical company that specializes in making drugs for people with rare diseases. Soliris was developed to treat people with two rare diseases, usually referred to orphan diseases because of how rare they are. These rare disease are called paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) and atypical haemolytic uremic syndrome (AHUS), which attacks the red blood cells in your body. It can lead to anaemia, organ failure and eventually death. The problem with this

Although they may the first company to successfully come out with a rare disease drug, it features many characteristics in a monopolistic competition. Alexion has a number of competitors. They are not the only pharmaceutical company out there that is producing drugs. There are big companies such as Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Bayer, just to name a few. In addition, each company produces their own drugs making differentiated products. Since they are all competitors, they compete with quality, price and marketing. Alexion, being a company that produces for rare diseases make top of the line drugs. The quality is inexplicable which makes them set the price higher than the rest of their competitors. Their marketing, however is simple and not too

Their demand among the consumers are high but for the governments not so much. The ridiculous prices are making governments question if it is worth it. But with that, looking at the total revenue that they have generated so far, it is $2.54 billion dollars. Governments are purchasing it because they are being pressured by consumers to get it. Alexion so far has generated a net profit of $144.4 billion dollars. They develop other drugs as well but Soliris is the most expensive. In the future, the company expects to have an even higher demand for Soliris. The price for the drug might be lowered because of the constant backlash they are receiving with the high prices. It is expected that the total revenue the company will generate will be $3.05 billion dollars and $3.10 billion dollars in the year 2018. As for profits, they expect a significant