In the year after the Supreme Court’s landmark antitrust decision in FTC v. Actavis, pharmaceutical companies entered into substantially fewer potential pay-for-delay patent dispute settlements, according to a new FTC staff report. In pay for delay, companies that hold patents for drugs pay other companies not to release similar drugs. The report summarizes data on patent settlements – which can arise between brand and generic drug companies – filed with the FTC and the Department of Justice during FY 2014 under the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. Generic drugs often cost less than brand drugs, helping to make medicines affordable for millions of American consumers and to keep health care costs down.
Regulation of the pharmaceutical industry: promoting health or protecting wealth?
Government has long had conflicting aims with regard to regulating the pharmaceutical industry. An essay in the in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine asks how the National Health Service in the United Kingdom is balancing its public health and economic mandates.
How an $84,000 drug got its price
Gilead Sciences executives were acutely aware in 2013 that their plan to charge an exorbitantly high price for a powerful new hepatitis C drug would spark public outrage, reports the Washington Post, but they pursued the profit-driven strategy anyway, according to a Senate Finance Committee investigation report released Tuesday.
Concerns Over Valeant Spread to Other Drug Makers
As questions mount about the viability of Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc.’s business model, writes the Wall Street Journal, concerns are spreading to other drug makers seen as following a similar playbook. Like Valeant, these firms are part of a new breed of pharmaceutical company that has limited costly investment in research and development and instead sought sales growth through debt-fueled acquisitions—often of older drugs for which they raise prices sharply.
Alarms raised on generic drug price increases
The Boston Globe reports that concerns about the soaring costs of prescription drugs have focused on new specialty treatments that can cost tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars per patient. But insurers, health care providers, and industry specialists are now raising alarms about a new potential source of rising prices: generic drugs. Insurers say they are seeing huge cost increases for some commonly used generic drugs, with prices surging 15, 25, and even 75 times what they were just two years ago.
Why VW and Johnson & Johnson Crossed the Line: Towards a Theory of Corporate Law Breaking
By Nicholas Freudenberg, Founder, Corporations and Health Watch
Readers of Corporations and Health Watch are familiar with the argument that the corporate practices that harm health are for the most part perfectly legal. However, recent media coverage of the scandals at Volkswagen and Johnson & Johnson led me to ask why some businesses choose to break the law. In the first, documented thoroughly in Steven Brill’s 15 chapter “docuserial” America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker posted last month on the Huffington Post Highline, the drug and medical device maker Johnson and Johnson (J&J) promoted Risperdal, an antipsychotic drug approved by the FDA for treating schizophrenia to children and older people for a much wider set of indications than those approved by the FDA. In 2013, Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay more than $2.2 billion in criminal and civil fines to settle accusations that it improperly promoted Risperdal.
Health and Trade: what hope for SDG3?
Emma Woodford, Founder and Director, Health and Trade Network (HaT)
Cross posted from Health and Trade Network
“… the forces of power, particularly corporate power, are impatient with what is adequate for a coherent community. Because power gains so little from community in the short run, it does not hesitate to destroy community for the long run.” ― Wes Jackson, Becoming Native to This Place
In case you had been asleep for the last ten days, last week in New York the UN finally ratified the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aiming to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all.
Company will cut price of drug after accused gouging
Associated Press reports that the company that sparked an angry backlash after it raised the price of a drug for treating a deadly parasitic infection by more than 5,000 percent says it will roll back some of the increase. Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli that the new price would make Daraprim more accessible, although he did not say what the new price for the drug would be.
Johnson & Johnson: America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker
Over the course of 20 years, Johnson & Johnson created a powerful drug, promoted it illegally to children and the elderly, covered up the side effects and made billions of dollars. Read the inside story by Steven Brill at Huffington Post.
The Vernacular of Risk — Rethinking Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Pharmaceuticals
Aside from New Zealand, the United States is the only country with a strong pharmaceutical regulatory infrastructure that allows direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription drugs. That may soon change, however, as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) moves to enact new regulations regarding risk communication in DTCA. A commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine explores this issue.
Corporations and Health Watch 