{"id":1548,"date":"2019-05-12T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-12T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/?p=1548"},"modified":"2026-09-16T07:55:27","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T11:55:27","slug":"drug-makers-inflated-prices-over-1000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/?p=1548","title":{"rendered":"Drug makers inflated prices over 1,000%"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAT, MAY 11 2019: <\/em><\/p>\n

Soaring drug prices from both branded and generic manufacturers have sparked outrage and investigations in the United States. <\/p>\n

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 \u2014 sometimes by more than 1,000% \u2014 and stifle competition for generic drugs, state prosecutors said on Saturday. <\/p>\n

\n

Republicans <\/b> protecting the guilty! <\/h4>\n

House Republicans are warning drug companies against complying with a House investigation into drug prices.
\n http:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/rachel-maddow-show\/republicans-warn-drug-companies-not-cooperate-investigation <\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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. <\/p>\n

2015:
\nBy 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… <\/p>\n

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] <\/b>
\n https:\/\/www.modernhealthcare.com\/legal\/humana-sues-generic-drug-makers-fixing-prices <\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Feb 10, 2017:
\nA 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.<\/b>
\nBefore 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. <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/matthewherper\/2017\/02\/10\/a-6000-price-hike-should-give-drug-companies-a-disgusting-sense-of-deja-vu\/ <\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

July 1, 2019:
\nMore 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, <\/b> the survey found.
\nAbout 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. <\/p>\n

The drug hikes come at a time when lawmakers and the Trump administration have vowed to address the problem of rising prescription costs.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/drug-prices-in-2019-are-surging-with-hikes-at-5-times-inflation\/ <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 \u2014 sometimes by more than 1,000% \u2014 and stifle competition for generic drugs, state prosecutors said on Saturday. Republicans protecting the guilty! House Republicans. . . CONTINUE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-corruption","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1548"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1893,"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548\/revisions\/1893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org\/energy-news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}