Death, taxes, and Big Pharma hiking their prices every January.
The three things you can always count on.
And once again, Big Pharma didn’t disappoint.
According to a report by GoodRx Health, Big Pharma has increased the price of more than 780 drugs by an average of 5 percent.
The Campaign for Sustainable Rx Pricing took a deep dive into the price hikes and found that “pharmaceutical giants Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Bristol Myers Squibb and Gilead were among the brand name drug companies to hike prices on drugs in their portfolio.”
According to their research:
- Pfizer hiked prices on more than 100 drugs, including levelling a whopping 16.8 percent price increase on its popular drug Solu-Cortef that treats various conditions such as arthritis, blood diseases, and certain cancers.
- GlaxoSmithKline raised prices on more than 30drugs, with cancer drug Zejula and seizure drug Lamictal topping the list with seven percent price increases each.
- Bristol Myers Squibb raised prices on more than a dozen of their drugs.
- Gilead Sciences raised prices 5.6 percent on HIV drugs Biktarvy and Descovy.
The federal government has been slow to act on controlling runaway Rx prices, and that’s why many states are beginning to take matters into their own hands.
Hawaii, Maine, and Washington are pushing to institute an 80 percent Big Pharma tax on drug price increases that aren’t shown to be supported by substantial clinical improvement.
Given these annual price hikes, North Carolina would do well to take similar approaches to protect consumers.
We know one thing for sure, without some kind of meaningful action prices are going to continue to soar.
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