ABSTRACT
As the cost of healthcare is rapidly increasing around the world, patient affordability and access restrictions are increasingly influencing physician prescribing. Canada and Australia have introduced relatively tight health economic requirements, which are directly linked to national or provincial formulary decision-making. Access to healthcare is considered a fundamental human right by organizations such as the World Health Organization. Gene therapy and personalized medicine are expected to substantially improve health outcomes for diseases such as cancer but are causing additional budgetary challenges for private and public health plans. The public concern over high and increasing prescription drug prices has drawn more attention than the positive patient impact of the large number of curative and palliative treatments that the industry has brought. Under the Trump administration, erratic and polarizing presidential behavior may have been the only thing standing in the way of joint initiative between Republicans and Democrats, as public frustrations over drug prices reached an all-time high.
