BOSTON -- By any standards, prescription drug costs are skyrocketing -- rising 17 percent each year with no real end in sight.

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More people are taking more drugs, and the drugs themselves are getting more expensive to make and to market.

In the first of three parts, NewsCenter 5's Medical Editor Dr. Timothy Johnson looks at how severe the problem is and why.

In the heart of the prestigious Longwood medical area, where some of the world's most famous hospitals treat patients, there's a new tenant --a multi-million dollar research facility to pave the way for better, lifesaving drugs.

But when 54-year-old Nadine Robinson, of Dorchester, needed one of those new drugs, it seemed out of reach. Vioxx -- which her insurance company refused to cover -- cost her $98 for a one-month supply.

"I don't think it's a good thing to be pretty sick and you get to the pharmacy," Robinson said.

One in five Massachusetts residents said that they can't afford the drugs prescribed for them. According to the pharmaceutical industry, much of the profit they reap from high prices is used to pay for the development of new drugs. But while drugs are expensive to make -- prices are high for another reason. The pharmaceutical industry, like any other, is supposed to make money, as much as possible for its investors.

"In case one didn't realize it, drug companies aren't in the charity business. They seem to do quite well, in fact over the last 10 years, the highest stock return on investment than any other company in the country. So they make a lot of money," Boston University School of Public Health Dr. Michael Grodin said.

They're doing that more and more by keeping away competition -- a trend that is disturbing to pharmacy managers like Bill Gouveia.

"One of the strategies of the big-name pharma companies is to delay the introduction of generic products. Even though we know that many generics have 10 percent of the price of the brand name product and are just as effective," Gouveia said.

Take the case of the heartburn drug Prilosec -- the second top selling drug last year. Just as the 17-year patent was about to run out on Prilosec -- allowing generics to compete and drive down the prices -- Nexium was born.

The same is true with the allergy blockbuster Claritin. The patent runs out at the end of this year, but its maker has already spent a fortune promoting it's new drug Clarinex -- a drug that many experts say is really no better. "What we're seeing is the drugs that are heavily advertised are the drugs that are showing up on our top 10 or top 20 drug list that weren't there before," Tufts Health Plan Dr. Joseph Raduazzo said.

Seniors are the most impacted. On fixed incomes, the combination of a poor economy, cancellations in drug coverage and an increase in the number of medications they need has made the situation critical. One in every three seniors Dr. Rob Schreiber sees cannot afford their medicines.

"I've had a number of patients that have actually stopped taking their medicine, that have become fairly depressed and ended up in the hospital because they're not taking their medicine," Schreiber said.

But pharmaceutical companies said that they also have problems.

"Out of every 15,000 medicines that are first discovered, of those 15,000, only three ever get to market and of those three, only one turns a profit," PhRMA President Alan Holmer said.

The costs to the drug companies can be staggering. Getting one drug thorough the FDA approval process and onto the pharmacy shelf costs about $800 million.

Some suggest the only way to control prices is government regulation, something the pharmaceutical industry says will come at the expense of the development of new, lifesaving drugs.

"We have to decide whether medicine is a marketplace or whether medicine is more like a public utility, which we can regulate and treat as though it belongs outside the market. Right now, we're on the fence," Massachusetts General Hospital Director of Health Policy Dr. David Blumenthal said.

Some patients are struggling to survive.

"We' still have our own house, but I don't know how long. It's getting to that point, where we have to really count pennies and dimes and nickels," patient Carl Davis said.