OBJECTIVES: Determination of the price of a drug starts in its early developmental stages and it is driven by various competitive health market forces. The purpose of the study is to explore associations between pharmaceutical pricing and the value of drugs. METHODS: Based on FDA indications we have identified three different drug categories: life saving drugs, drugs that are not life saving but save lives overtime, and drugs that only treat disease symptoms and affect QOL. We have investigated our theory of an association between drug intended outcomes and the price tag placed on a drug by performing a literature review of cost analyses for drugs selected in each category. The literature review included a combination of key words such as the name of the drug, cost-effectiveness, cost-utility, and QALY. We identified articles from the past 10 years published only in the English language. For each drug, studies reporting ICER/QALY values were selected. ICER/QALY data were recorded and the values of the three categories were compared among each other and with the published acceptable QALY threshold value of US$64,000. RESULTS: For the life saving drugs group the highest ICER/QALY value is US$150,843 and lowest is €6,880, for the disease ameliorating drugs group €105,599 and US$544, and for the drugs treating disease symptoms and affecting QOL £154,831 and $US1,056 respectively. The majority of drugs in the first category were found to have ICER/ QALY values greater than the $64,000 value, while the majority of the drugs selected in the second and third categories were found to have ICER/QALY values smaller than the $64,000 value. CONCLUSIONS: From our study we have found that drugs that are life saving are more likely to have ICER/QALY values greater than the threshold values compared to drugs that are disease ameliorating and that are designed to improve patients’ QOL.