“Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli took plenty of heat last year in raising the price of anti-parasitic drug Daraprim by more than 50 times the current amount, but he was correct in saying he wasn’t alone. A U.S. congressional hearing on rapidly rising drug prices was held yesterday and there was plenty to discuss with the new findings from a recent survey by DRX.
Daraprim was the biggest culprit in the survey, but coming in second was Novacort, a topical gel used to treat skin irritation, whose price has jumped by 2,900% since December 2014. Other drugs whose prices jumped 10-fold during that same period included Alcortin A. (1,860%), a steroid and antibiotic gel used to treat skin infections and eczema, and Aloquin (1,750%), a topical gel also used to treat numerous skin conditions.
Hundreds of drugs also continue to rise at annual rates of 10% or more, with 400 brand-name drugs increasing costs to that amount since early December. Pfizer has raised prices for 24 of its drug products by at least 12% in the last two months, including Viagra. Meanwhile, GlaxoSmithKline hiked the prices on 22 of their products by at least 15% since last December. Only 50 of the 3,000 drugs analyzed in the survey received a decrease in price.
“Pricing tactics are not limited to a few ‘bad apples,’” said Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings. “[They] are prominent throughout the industry.”
Several of the drugmakers have since attempted to justify their staggering price hikes. GlaxoSmithKline said via e-mail that their prices actually declined from 2014 to 2015 when factoring in discounts and that “price increases for some medicines are a reality in a competitive U.S. marketplace and we strive to handle them thoughtfully.” Valeant also released a statement claiming they offered discounts of up to 30% on many of their products after hospitals complained the prices were too high. Novum Pharma LLC, the makers of Alcortin A., insisted that DRX’s listed prices don’t reflect the cost for commercially insured patients, who get the products for $0 copayment, and cash-paying patients who only shell out $35.
Meanwhile, Shkreli was unsurprisingly less diplomatic in his explanation. He wrote an e-mail last August to the chairman of the board to Turing Pharamceuticals, explaining that the Daraprim price hike would result in a $375 million boost with “almost all of it profit.”
Shkreli was ordered by Congress to testify at the hearing on rising drug prices, which was held yesterday. Shkreli pleaded the fifth, opting to smirk instead of answer questions. After the hearing, he took to Twitter to air his Congressional grievances. In a tweet that is making national headlines, Shkreli opined, “Hard to accept that these imbeciles run our government.”
