Sanders to Gables pharma firm: Why are you charging $375,000 for life-saving drug?
From the article:
"Nicholson Price, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan who specializes in law surrounding innovation in the life sciences, said Catalyst would likely counter by saying it was responsible for spending the money to get the treatment formally approved.
“In an ideal state, we’re not giving patients drugs for which we don’t have rigorous evidence that it works,” he said.
But he said he has noticed a change in approach from some drug industry executives who formerly shied away from this kind of sticker shock, even if they could. In 2017, pharma investor Martin Shkreli came under fire for raising the price of Daraprim, which is used to treat rare cases of toxoplasmosis, 5,000 percent from about $13 to $750. Shkreli was later indicted on unrelated securities fraud charges.
“The idea of, ‘I have a moral duty to make the most money for my shareholders as the CEO of a publicly traded company’ — I think that is a strand of thinking of business ethics that is hugely problematic.”
Still, he said, taxpayers end up bearing the cost of these types of increases, whether through government or higher premiums."
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