Facing Criticism, Drug Makers Keep Lid On Price Increases

[question everything]

Source: WSJ

Facing mounting criticism about prices, drug companies put some limits on their increases this year. Prescription-drug makers traditionally raise list prices in January. This year, they didn’t raise prices for as many drugs as last year and imposed fewer boosts of 10% or greater, according to an analysis by the investment firm Raymond James & Associates. About 5.5% of the increases reached the 10% level. A year ago, 15% did, and two years ago, 20% did. Even so, the median drug-price increase was little changed from last year, at 8.9%, still far above the U.S. inflation rate of around 2%.

Self-policing on prices hasn’t been universal. Marathon Pharmaceuticals LLC caused an outcry two weeks ago when it set an $89,000-a-year starting price for a decades-old muscular-dystrophy treatment that Americans could get from abroad for $1,600 a year or less until Marathon won U.S. approval to sell it. After criticism in Congress and elsewhere, Marathon said it would delay the launch.

And six months after the EpiPen uproar—Mylan NV was charging $609 for a two-pack of the allergic-reaction treatment—a company called Kaleo said it would charge $4,500 for a competing product, Auvi-Q. Kaleo said it has a way to cut the cost to zero for most patients, though not for health plans. On the EpiPen, Mylan later offered a $300 generic version.

Even price increases below 10%, as most of this year’s are, can drive total drug spending up by hundreds of millions of dollars. Take Humira, an arthritis and psoriasis treatment that brought in $10.4 billion for AbbVie Inc. in U.S. sales last year. AbbVie raised Humira’s list price 8.4% in January, which could mean as much as $850 million in additional U.S. health-care spending this year if usage holds steady, according to Raymond James analyst Elliot Wilbur.




Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/facing-criticism-drug-makers-keep-lid-on-price-increases-1488157893

---

Humira price can be reduced if AbbVie will not run non stop ads on TV.

[TheDebbieDee]

1. ITA about the constant Humira, Viagra and Cialis ads...

If it weren't for paying for these ads, pharma companies could lower their prices... But then Madison Avenue companies couldn't make as much money booking ads on TV...

[question everything]

4. I often wonder about these ads. After all. one needs a prescription to get it

or drive to Mexico.. So, one visit the doctor and asks specifically for the one "as seen on TV?"

And... when one hears all the side effects of any of the drugs one has to wonder about using any of it.

[TheDebbieDee]

5. The pharma companies gives doctors kickbacks

incentives for prescribing some drugs. If patients go in to see their doctors asking abt the symptoms they've seen on a commercial, cue doctor writing a prescrip for that corresponding med.

I could be wrong but I'm convinced that RESTLESS LEG SYNDROME does not actually exist.

Erectile Dysfunction does exist, but I think men ask for a prescrip whether they need one or not!

[Massacure]

6. Not only that, but in the case of Humira, AbbVie gives he patient kickbacks

Humira cost more than $4,000 a month, but they rebate the patient all of their out of pocket costs except for $5 a month. Say you have a $2,000 deductible and then you pay 20% until you pay a total of $4,000 out of pocket maximum on your health insurance. You can order Humira on January 2, blow through the $2,000 deductible, pay the $400 copay, and have $2,400 of your $4,000 out of pocket used up. AbbVie then turns around and cuts you a check for $2,395 dollars. You can buy another month's worth February 1 for $800 and receive a check for $795, and then again in March 1 at which point your out of pocket maximum is used up. Stick your hand in a snowblower on March 2, and you won't be out anything (except maybe your arm). Stick your arm in a snowblower on January 1, and you'll be out $4,000 from your emergency department visit and your arm.

As for Restless Leg Syndrome, I was in the same boat as you until I was prescribed a medication (an anti-depressant, Viibryd) that made me absolutely feel the need to always be moving. Trying to fall asleep at night the short while I was on it was absolute hell. There actually is a medical term for for that feeling, Akathisia. I guess Restless Leg Syndrome is technically a medical term too, but it sounds like it was coined by a marketing department and not a laboratory.

[nikibatts]

2. We have already paid a hefty price for these drugs through Federal taxpayer dollars.

The drug companies are heavily financed thru Federal grants and contracts that even pay for most of the clinical trials for these drugs. But the companies get to get patents and licensing fees for these drugs also. They claim that research and development is costly, and it is. But it is costly to the government mostly.

[Scarsdale]

3. Politicians

Have they been notified that their "stipend" will be decreased this year? Orrin Hatch has a son who is a lobbyist for a pharmaceutical company. Ol' Orrin has made a bundle from this little deal. If these grifters were eliminated, prices could go down. Keeping a representative on the payroll who can manipulate the government gets expensive. Time to get the old guard out, vote in new blood, hopefully HONEST people for a change.