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Pharmaceutical companies typically charge slightly inflated prices for drugs that have a large customer base and are heavily prescribed by doctors, in order to balance the losses such companies experience from producing “orphan” drugs—drugs that are used by so few patients that they can never be profitable. New federal regulations require pharmaceutical companies to limit the price they charge for any drug to cost plus a predetermined percentage profit.

If the statements above are true, which of the following must also be true?


A. New pharmaceutical technology has made advances possible; the drugs produced by such technology, however, are too expensive for all but the wealthiest patients.

B. If pharmaceutical companies do not find another source of income to balance the losses they experience in producing orphan drugs, such companies will no longer be able to produce those drugs without compromising overall profits.

C. Some patients already request generic pharmaceuticals, when they are available, because they are typically less expensive than name-brand pharmaceuticals.

D. If pharmaceutical companies reduce the costs of producing most drugs, they will be able to earn more profits despite the new law, and thus will be able to balance the losses they experience from the production of orphan drugs.

E. Even though charitable organizations that fund research into the rare diseases treated by orphan drugs provide some donations to offset the costs of the drugs, such donations are declining.

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:



B

This is an inference question, so the correct answer will be something you know from the argument.

(A) No. We have no information about the drugs’ cost to the patient.

(B) Yes. If the companies can no longer place surcharges on more popular drugs, they will lose the sources of revenue that balance the losses from orphan drugs. They will have to find other revenue sources or lose money.

(C) No. The passage provides no information about generic drugs—it’s out of scope.

(D) No. This is contradicted by the argument, which says there will be a constant percentage of profit allowed. So if drug costs are reduced, the profit should be commensurately reduced.

(E) No. There is no information in this argument about charitable organizations and offsetting of costs.

But, we never knew the amount of profits that are predetermined. I mean to say that, the predetermined profit "could" be way high and infact could lead these manufacturers to earn higher profits than before.
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