As someone who works in the pharmaceutical industry (for a company that makes cancer drugs), I would just like to add a few of my thoughts that I feel are important to consider:
Many lifesaving drugs are indeed very expensive. Historically, this has been due to several factors.
1) The overwhelming majority of drugs that pharma companies try to bring to market fail at some point of the development process (whether due to being ineffective and/or rejected by regulatory authorities) - these failures wind up costing companies millions upon millions of dollars. That means, when there is success, the company must charge a rate that helps them offset prior losses.
2) Up until the last 15 years or so, there were very few drugs available to treat certain diseases. For example, one cancer in particular only had 1 drug available to treat it as late as 2003 - that same cancer now has 9 drugs available to treat it. This is a really good thing, and in most industries, once alternative choices appear, cost usually becomes a factor within company competition. To date this has not yet happened, but I believe it will start happening as payers start tightening the pursestrings.
3) This next point is rarely discussed - many patented drugs are now going "off label" - that is to say, generic. A generic cancer regimen may only cost $700 per month (opposed to $10,000 per month for newer treatments). The interesting piece is that the efficacy of the new expensive product in many cases is only 10% greater than the generic. (Average patient will live 24 months with new drug vs 22 months with generic old drug).
If you have a 75 year old family member and the cancer has returned 3 times, perhaps it is time to consider using the generic for treatment rather than pushing for the marginally better, much more expensive branded product? The problem is, very few doctors, families, patients, or payers are willing to have this honest discussion, because it is widely seen as unethical to not prescribe "the best".
4) Companies are starting to use data today that is helping them design their clinical trials better and analyze results in a way that help them to know if their drug will fail much earlier in the development process. This in turn reduces costs, and will eventually flow to reduce the list price of drugs that make it to market.
Just a some of my thoughts.