Modern medicines are becoming more expensive, leading to fears that life-saving drugs will remain out of reach of the sick. Discovery Health held a seminar in Johannesburg yesterday to discuss "high-cost medicines" - those that prolong or improve lives but which could threaten the sustainability of health systems.In 2014, medicines for 69 individuals cost Discovery Health Medical Scheme about R1.73-million a person a year. The average person spent less than R4000 on drugs.The number of high-cost drug claimants in the scheme rose from 13 in 2008 to 69 last year. Many of these were cancer sufferers.Discovery CEO Jonathan Broomberg said personalised medicine would drive costs."There are currently 100 drugs in America that are metabolised differently by different individuals, depending on genetic variations, [requiring genetic testing], and soon there will be thousands."He said one of the biggest drivers of costs was that more people were sicker and used more chronic medicines every year.A new drug for stage four melanoma, that is expected to save the lives of 25% of patients, costs about R2-million a year."We have to ask questions such as how can a medical scheme afford a product costing R1-million to R2-million a course, when the average annual premium is R40000 per annum," Broomberg said.US researcher Michael Kleinrock defended the high costs of medicines."If a drug company makes a cure, it should be rewarded for it," said Kleinrock.He defended the controversial new Hepatitis C drug, which costs $100000 in the US...