Within every industry around the United States of America there is competition. Competition is necessary for any industry to thrive and make economical, as well as technological advances. Once again however, the competition within the Pharmaceutical industry is much different than the competition in other American industries.
Recently the United States Pharmaceutical industry has been showing signs of vertical consolidation. What this means is that a lot of pharmaceutical companies are combining their suppliers and distributors under a common owner. Through this consolidating practices, industry leaders can then better predict pricing deviations and adjust prices to better compete with other industry leaders. PBM, which stands for Pharmaceutical Benefit Management is used in this process by Pharmaceutical companies. Through these PBM's companies can find out whether they can offer a better rebate to consumers than their competitors and can adjust rebates accordingly.
Competition in the Pharmaceutical industry is also affected by special prices and deals for senior citizens who are the main consumers of the pharmaceutical industry. Although these prices may result in a loss of competition because all companies are regulated by the government to provide these prices, it may also cause a different type of competition through price discrimination. Most trends have shown price discrimination to go hand-in-hand with competition within the industry. It's competition like this that makes the Pharmaceutical industry different from other U.S. industries.
http://www.ftc.gov/reports/pharmaceutical/drugexsum.shtm
I think your discussion really shows how the pharmaceutical companies are doing everything that they can in order to make money. It proves why in this recession the pharmaceutical companies are still making the big bucks.
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