Pleiotropy (drugs) can respond to them, because the endogenous ones are endocrine messengers. Pleiotropy (drugs) In pharmacology, pleiotropy includes all of a drug's actions other than those for which the agent was specifically developed. It may include adverse effects which are detrimental ones, but is often used to denote additional beneficial effects. For example, statins are HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors that primarily act by decreasing cholesterol synthesis, but which are believed to have other beneficial effects, including acting as antioxidants and stabilizing atherosclerotic plaques. Steroid drugs, such as prednisone and prednisolone, have pleiotropic effects, including systemic ones, for the same reason that endogenous
Specialty drugs in the United States patients and payers. Patients frequently have difficulty paying for these medications, which can lead to lack of access to treatment. Specialty drugs are now so expensive that they are leading to increases in insurance premiums. Control of specialty drug prices will require research to identify effective policy options, which may include: decreasing regulation, limiting patent protection, allowing negotiation of drug prices by Medicare, or pricing drugs based on their effectiveness. In the United States, private insurance payers will favour a lower-cost agent preferring generics and biosimilars to the more expensive specialty drugs if there is no peer-reviewed or evidence-based justification