|
 The staff report also noted pricing and marketing tactics by Pfizer
Inc that helped it earn billions of dollars from its now off-patent
pain drug Lyrica.
The report, put out following a nearly three-year probe, took issue
with assertions by the pharmaceutical industry that high drug prices
were needed to fund innovation and research and development
programs.
"The Committee's investigation also found that companies dedicated a
significant portion of their R&D expenditures to research that was
intended to extend market monopolies, support the companies'
marketing strategies, and suppress competition," the report said.
The report, which focused on 12 drugs made by 10 companies, said
that Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi own some 90% of the market for
life-sustaining insulin, which was invented in the 1920s.
A Lilly spokesperson said the company offers discounts to make its
insulin affordable. A Sanofi spokesperson said the price of its
insulin product Lantus had declined almost 45% since 2012. A Novo
Nordisk spokesperson said the report reflected a limited picture of
the company's efforts to make drugs accessible.
Medicare, the U.S. government health insurance program for those age
65 and older and the disabled, could have saved more than $16.7
billion from 2011 to 2017 on insulin purchases had it been allowed
to negotiate discounts with drug companies, the report found.
"We found that drug companies target American patients for price
increases, in large part because Medicare is prohibited from
negotiating for lower prices. At the same time, the drug companies
maintained or cut prices for the rest of the world," Committee
Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney said at a news conference on Friday.
The high prices have had human costs. More than 40% of
insulin-dependent patients surveyed said they rationed their
medicine in the previous year, the Colorado attorney general's
office found in a 2020 report.
[to top of second column] |
 PRODUCT HOPPING
President Joe Biden's Build Back Better plan,
which passed the House and should come before
the Senate this year, includes a provision
allowing Medicare to negotiate with drugmakers,
although only for a small number of medicines.
The report also found that some pharmaceutical
companies engage in what it called "product
hopping," a practice of making small tweaks to
formulations to get a new patent and then
switching patients to the newer, more expensive
version. There are bills before Congress to ban
product hopping.
Among big-selling insulin products, Eli Lilly
raised the price of its Humalog 1,219% per vial
since it launched, Novo Nordisk raised the price
of NovoLog 627% since launch and Sanofi has
raised the price of Lantus 715%, the report
found.
The report also found that Pfizer targeted the
U.S. market for higher prices for its
blockbuster Lyrica, as well as using product
hopping to prevent patients from shifting to
cheaper, generic versions of the medicine.
Lyrica's price had gone up 420% since it was
approved in 2004, the report said. It had sales
of about $2 billion in 2019.
Pfizer did not have an immediate comment.
The report also listed price hikes of 825% for
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries' Copaxone, 486%
for Amgen's Enbrel, 395% for Novartis'
decades-old Gleevec, more than 100,000% for
Mallinckrodt's Acthar, 471% for AbbVie's Humira
and 82% for its Imbruvica, and 255% for
Celgene's Revlimid, now owned by Bristol Myers
Squibb.
Most of the drugs mentioned in the report are
over a decade old.
Novartis said it invested over 18% of its global
revenue into R&D. Mallinckrodt and Bristol Myers
did not have an immediate comment. Amgen, AbbVie,
and Teva did not respond to requests for
comment.
(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Additional Reporting
by Ahmed Aboulenein in Washington; Editing by
Bill Berkrot)
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