Are drug-makers inflating prices?

<strong>PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE (TNS)</strong>

When someone complains about the cost of medications, pharmaceutical companies like to cite research and development costs or deflect blame in other ways. According to a federal lawsuit filed by 20 states’ attorneys general, higher prices also occur because big pharma plays fast and loose with the rules.

The antitrust suit alleges that six drugmakers conspired to fix prices and divvy up market share. The suit focuses on two generic drugs — doxycycline hyclate delayed release, which is an antibiotic; and glyburide, a diabetes medication. However, Pennsylvania Attorney General Bruce Beemer, one of those who filed the suit, said investigators continue looking at the drugmakers’ activity with other medications.

The suit alleges that price-fixing was orchestrated by the companies’ executives; that coordination of their activities occurred at trade shows and through phone calls, emails and text messages; and that those involved, knowing their actions were wrong, took steps to conceal them.

The impact of such behavior falls squarely on the average consumer, who pays what Beemer called “artificially higher prices” for medications. But there also is an effect on a health care system that already struggles to balance the interests of consumers, clinicians, insurers, pharmaceutical companies and service providers. Unethical behavior by one part makes the entire system less functional.

Consumers already have protested huge price increases for Mylan’s EpiPen, used to combat allergic reactions, and Turing Pharmaceuticals’ move last year to increase the cost of an anti-parasitic drug to $750 per pill, up from $13.50. The suit against the six drugmakers gives consumers more reason to think they’re being taken advantage of.

If true, claims made in the suit are an additional reason to support legislation, such as that recently signed into law in Vermont, that would identify drugs with the biggest price jumps and require manufacturers to explain the increases. A spoonful of transparency would help the medicine go down.

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