Price increases for pharmaceuticals have probably been the most difficult pill for patients to swallow in recent years. Between 2008 and 2015, prices on brand name pharmaceuticals rose by 127 percent while the consumer price index only rose by 11 percent. In February of this year, Canada-based Valeant Pharmaceuticals ( NYSE:VRX ) purchased the rights to a pair of medications often prescribed to patients with heart conditions and raised their prices by 212 percent and 525 percent, respectively. In each of the above cases, a company bought a drug that was already approved and raised the prices without publishing any scientific material supporting the price increase. In each case it seems pretty clear that prices were raised simply because they could be raised for higher profits.