Research published Wednesday in JAMA estimates close to half of all new brand-name prescription drugs launched in the U.S. in 2020 and 2021 came with an original price tag of at least $150,000 a year.

Research published Wednesday in the medical journal JAMA estimates that close to half of all new brand-name prescription drugs launched in the U.S. in 2020 and 2021 came with an original price tag of at least $150,000 a year, a finding that sparked fresh calls for Congress to rein in the pharmaceutical industry’s virtually unchecked power to drive up costs.

Authored by researchers with the Program on Regulation, Therapeutics and Law at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the new analysis finds that “from 2008 to 2021, launch prices for new drugs increased exponentially by 20% per year.”

“In 2020-2021, 47% of new drugs were initially priced above $150,000 per year,” the researchers wrote. “The trend in prices for new drugs outpaces growth in prices for other healthcare services.”

The study also shows that median launch prices of prescription drugs soared from $2,115 per year in 2008 to a staggering $180,007 in 2021.

“Unbelievable,” Nancy LeaMond, chief advocacy and engagement officer for the AARP, tweeted in response to the figures.

The authors of the new analysis stress that prescription medicine prices are rising so quickly in the U.S. because profit-seeking drug manufacturers are permitted to “freely set prices after approval,” resulting in far higher costs than those seen in Canada, Germany, France and other wealthy nations.

“Prescription drug spending in the U.S. exceeded half a trillion dollars in 2020,” the researchers wrote.

“In response to the current trends, the U.S. could stop allowing drug manufacturers to freely set prices and follow the example of other industrialized countries that negotiate drug prices at launch.”

Advocates pointed to the new study as further evidence of the need for action from Congress as the pharmaceutical industry continues hiking drug prices in 2022.

“Americans are already struggling to afford inflated prices on daily necessities,” the Lower Drug Prices Now coalition wrote in a social media post on Wednesday. “Big Pharma’s yearly price hikes have pushed already sky-high drug prices into the stratosphere.”