releases: https://www.mccaskill.senate.gov/media-center/latest-headlines/steep-drug-price-hikes-harm-patients-experts-testify
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
This data as json
| url | title | date | year | month | party | chamber | state | member_name | bioguide_id | domain | scraper | source | date_source | text | has_text | collected_at | updated_at |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| https://www.mccaskill.senate.gov/media-center/latest-headlines/steep-drug-price-hikes-harm-patients-experts-testify | Steep drug price hikes harm patients, experts testify | 2015-12-09 | 2015 | 2015-12 | Democrat | House | MO | Claire McCaskill | M001170 | www.mccaskill.senate.gov | legacy | Steep drug price hikes harm patients, experts testify Wednesday, December 9, 2015 By: Kevin McCoy Steep price hikes forsome off-patent drugs harmpatients by restricting access to potentiallife-saving medications, health care and health insuranceexperts testifiedat a congressionalhearing Wednesday. Responding to outrage from doctors and patients, theSenate Special Committee on Agingspotlighted supply problems that occur when government-authorizedpatents on medicationsexpire and the drug rights are sold to new pharmaceutical companiesthat raise prices by as much as 6000%. Committee members raised the prospect of addingnew pricing rules to the federal government's existing drug oversight system. "That balance we have struck never anticipated companies acquiring off-patent drugs and then jacking up their prices to enormous heights, and do so, as one executive essentially put it, 'because I can,'" said committee chairwoman Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. "But that is exactly what we have seen in recent months." Spiraling costsfor two heart drugs owned by drugmaker Valeant Pharmacueticals International increased the Cleveland Clinic's total drug budget by $8.6 million, hearing testimony showed. North Carolina doctors treating a babyfor toxoplasmosiswere unable to get the Daraprim medication that targets the parasitic disease because Turing Pharmaceuticals had raised the price 40 times beyondits original cost. The doctors instead had to usean alternative medication. Erin Fox, director of the drug information service atthe University ofUtah Health System, testified that a price hike from $440 to $2,700forced her to keep a Valeant heartdrug locked up afterremoving it from medicationcarts where it previously had been available. The hearing also focused on similar price hikes for drugs owned by Rodelis Therapeutics and Retrophin for treating hepatitis C and other illnesses. The off-patent drugs in many cases faceno generic versions that could provide market competition, and serve relatively small patient groups. Additionally, the new owners didn't spend millions of dollars to research and developthe medications. "Valeant markets more than 200 prescription drugs and hundreds more non-prescription products, so broad conclusions about the companys pricing can not be drawn from any one drug or set of drugs," said Laurie Little a vice-president ofthe Canada-based drugmaker. "We set prices based on a number of factors, including the cost of the development or acquisition of a drug, the availability of substitutes or generics, and the benefits it offers versus alternative treatments that might be more costly." Although Valeant said it offered patient aidprograms to ease the painof price hikes, Fox said her calls to Valeant about the costs met with the same response: "Talk to your distributor." Nancy Retzlaff, Turing's chief commercial officer, said the New York City-based firm iscommitted to patient access" and to developing therapies"for rare and neglected diseases." Pledging that no patient would be deniedaccess toDaraprimshe said more than 60%of the drug's output "is provided to patients at a $1 per prescription or less." However, pharmacy benefit management giant Express Scripts this month said it would work with a compounding pharmacy to provide Daraprim to all patients for $1 per treatment. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., the committee's ranking minority member, said the committee's continuinginvestigation had found a pharmaceutical industry "market failure." "And when there's a market failure, the government has a role in addressing it," said McCaskill. Print Email Tweet | 1 | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z |