SAT, MAY 11 2019:
Soaring drug prices from both branded and generic manufacturers have sparked outrage and investigations in the United States.
44 U.S. states filed a lawsuit against Teva Pharmaceuticals USA for orchestrating a sweeping scheme with 19 other drug companies to inflate drug prices — sometimes by more than 1,000% — and stifle competition for generic drugs, state prosecutors said on Saturday.
Republicans protecting the guilty!
House Republicans are warning drug companies against complying with a House investigation into drug prices.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/republicans-warn-drug-companies-not-cooperate-investigation
With Teva at the center of the conspiracy, the drug companies colluded to significantly raise prices on 86 medicines between July 2013 and January 2015.
2015:
By an interesting coincidence, back in 2015 Teva agreed to pay $1.2 billion to settle a lawsuit brought by the FTC against its subsidiary, Cephalon, over a “pay for delay” scheme to keep competitors from launching low-cost generic drugs. It’s almost as if the generics industry never learns…
In late September, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) released a sweeping plan to lower drug costs by allowing the government to negotiate the price of hundreds of brand-name drugs. [the Republicans passed a law denying the right to negotiate – helping the drug co.s cheat on prices]
https://www.modernhealthcare.com/legal/humana-sues-generic-drug-makers-fixing-prices
Feb 10, 2017:
A steroid called deflazacort from Europe or Canada sells at a price between $1,000 or $2,000 a year; a pharmaceutical company in Deerfield, Ill., Marathon Pharmaceuticals, is charging a list price of $89,000 – a 6,000% price increase.
Before that, we had the case of Makena, used to prevent pre-term birth. It was launched in 2011 at a price of $1,500 when a similar drug was previously available, from compounding pharmacies, for $20.
Emflaza: because this steroid has never been approved in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration considers it a new drug [wrong!]. That means that Marathon gets the benefit of laws Congress has passed to encourage drug companies to develop new medicines for rare diseases.
Those legal benefits include a 7-year monopoly under the Orphan Drug Act, and a rare disease priority review voucher that allows a company to get a sped-up FDA review for another drug. Such vouchers can be sold for large sums.
The idea behind those benefits is that society needs to pay in order for drugs for rare diseases to be developed. It seems obvious that getting a generic steroid (that is approved in the rest of the world) through the FDA should not have the same benefits to a company as inventing a new medicine. Yet, under the law, it does.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2017/02/10/a-6000-price-hike-should-give-drug-companies-a-disgusting-sense-of-deja-vu/
July 1, 2019:
More than 3,400 drug prices have been boosted in the first six months of 2019, an increase of 17% in the number of drug hikes from a year earlier. The average price hike for those 3,400 drugs stands at 10.5%, or about 5 times the rate of inflation – far outpacing wage growth and the cost of living. About one-third of patients say they’re skipping prescription medicine because of the cost, the survey found.
About 41 drugs have boosted their prices by more than 100%, including one version of the antidepressant fluoxetine — also known as Prozac — whose cost has surged 879%, Rx Savings Solutions said.
The drug hikes come at a time when lawmakers and the Trump administration have vowed to address the problem of rising prescription costs.
That’s an issue with insulin, which Type 1 diabetics require to stay alive. Even though the medication was discovered nearly a century ago, its price has more than doubled over 5 years, causing financial hardship for many diabetics and prompting some to ration the medication to cut costs. In some cases, those decisions have proved fatal.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/drug-prices-in-2019-are-surging-with-hikes-at-5-times-inflation/