F
“ The price of insulin rose by 54 percent between 2014 to 2019 , and the anti-parasitic drug Daraprim was repriced from $ 13.50 to $ 750 in 2015 by Turing Pharmaceuticals founder Martin Shkreli . Mylan raised the price of EpiPen to $ 600 from $ 100 with no warning .”
ew fail to be shocked at the rising prices of some prescription drugs . “ Drug companies have raised prices relentlessly for decades while manipulating the patent system and other laws to delay competition from lower-priced generics ,” reported the House Committee on Oversight and Reform in December 2021 .
The price of insulin rose by 54 percent between 2014 to 2019 , and the anti-parasitic drug Daraprim was repriced from $ 13.50 to $ 750 in 2015 by Turing Pharmaceuticals founder Martin Shkreli . Mylan raised the price of EpiPen to $ 600 from $ 100 with no warning .
And then there were the hepatitis C drugs which cured the condition for the first time . Gilead Science priced Sovaldi , one of the first such hepatitis C drugs , at a shocking $ 1,000 a pill or $ 84,000 for a course of treatment . Lawmakers worried that the opportunistic prices would sack entitlement programs , and they did ; in 2014 alone , Medicare and Medicaid spent over $ 5 billion on Sovaldi and Gilead ’ s follow-up hepatitis C drug , Harvoni .
In 2017 , Harvoni ad campaigns on TV , in broadcast , and on posters along train commuter lines unabashedly stressed screening , warning people that if they were born between 1945 and 1965 , they could have hepatitis C and not know it .
The shift to scare tactics and a push for screening — sometimes called disease mongering — was not a coincidence . According to the pharmaceutical trade website Fierce Pharma , Gilead ’ s hepatitis blockbusters at the time were “ in freefall , and its pool of eligible patients has shrunk dramatically thanks to the success of its meds .” If “ all baby boomers got tested for the virus , though ? That could help stem the tide — and it ’ s exactly the move the company is recommending with its latest awareness push ,” continued the site .
Some of the ads for hepatitis C drugs included the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) logo which instantly increased marketing credibility but also raised questions about Gilead donations to the CDC foundation and quid pro quos . Few realize that the CDC foundation boasts many drugmaker donors like Abbott , AbbVie , Bayer , AstraZeneca , Merck , Pfizer , GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals , Eli Lilly , Amgen , Genentech and , as we noted , Gilead which raises questions about monetary conflicts of interest . And , when it came to hepatitis C drugs , “ there was more ,” as the infomercials say . The drugs had been rushed to market so quickly , the their penchant for reactivating pre-existing hepatitis B was completely overlooked and add post hoc warnings had to be added to the label by 2016 .
In 2017 , the New York Times reported additional , undisclosed risks with the hepatitis C drugs . Of 250,000 patients treated with them , 524 experienced liver failure and 165 died wrote the newspaper . “ An additional 1,058 had severe liver injury , and in 761 the drugs appeared not to work .”
Thomas J . Moore , a senior scientist at the Institute for Safe Medication Practices , echoed what many were thinking as the hepatitis drug risks unfolded : does the rush to bring a new drug treatment to market come at an unforeseen cost to patient safety ? Were they approved too quickly ? Clearly , fast approvals , like ever-increasing drug prices , can and do harm patients .
The Trial Lawyer x 31