Big Pharma Quietly Enlists Leading Professors to Justify $1,000-Per-Day Drugs

As it readies for battle with President Donald Trump over drug prices, writes Pacific Standard, the pharmaceutical industry is deploying economists and health-care experts from the nation’s top universities. In scholarly articles, blogs, and conferences, they lend their prestige to the lobbying blitz, without always disclosing their corporate ties. Over the last three years, pharmaceutical companies have mounted a public relations blitz to tout new cures for the hepatitis C virus and persuade insurers, including government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, to cover the costs. That isn’t an easy sell, because the price of the treatments ranges from $40,000 to $94,000 — or, because the treatments take three months, as much as $1,000 per day.