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posted by Fnord666 on Friday December 09 2016, @04:01PM   Printer-friendly
from the that's-another-fine-mess-you've-gotten-into dept.

Reuters reports on a record 84 million pound fine (about $107 million) for its role in raising the cost of a generic epilepsy drug by up to 2600%:

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) also fined Flynn Pharma 5.2 million pounds for overcharging for phenytoin sodium capsules, following a dramatic price hike in 2012. The CMA's ruling comes amid a growing debate on both sides of the Atlantic about the ethics of price hikes for old off-patent medicines that are only made by a few firms and where there is little competition. U.S. drugmaker Turing Pharmaceuticals, led at the time by hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli, caused outrage last year by raising the U.S. price of Daraprim, an old anti-infective drug, by more than 5,000 percent to $750 a pill.

[...] Pfizer used to market the medicine under the brand name Epanutin but sold the rights to Flynn, a privately owned British company, in September 2012. It was then debranded, meaning that it was no longer subject to price regulation, and the price soared. "The companies deliberately exploited the opportunity offered by debranding to hike up the price for a drug which is relied upon by many thousands of patients," Philip Marsden, chairman of the CMA's case decision group, said on Wednesday. "This is the highest fine the CMA has imposed and it sends out a clear message to the sector that we are determined to crack down on such behavior."

So, ironically, by turning the drug into a "generic" under UK regulations, they were able to jack the price up to extreme levels. Pfizer plans to appeal the ruling. The Guardian has further details:

Pfizer defended its actions, saying the drugs were loss-making before they were debranded and distributed through Flynn Pharma. It also argued that the price was less than that of the equivalent medicine from another supplier to the NHS.

A spokesman for the CMA said Pfizer recouped its losses on the medication within two months, adding that the price of other drugs did not permit the companies fined to charge "excessive and unfair prices".

One thing I wonder about such fines is whether they can possibly be effective. Even if they manage to hurt a pharmaceutical company's bottom line in the UK a bit, without some sort of international standard regulation of drug pricing, won't they just pass any costs of litigation onto consumers in the U.S. or somewhere else by hiking the price on this or other drugs even more?


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  • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday December 09 2016, @04:48PM

    by hemocyanin (186) on Friday December 09 2016, @04:48PM (#439233) Journal

    You're mean. exponential on one side, simple subtraction on the other. ;-)

    The fine should be big, but I sometimes wonder if the government loves this scenario. Government is basically a third wheel in this transaction but it makes a tidy profit by fining the gouger. Next, the fines aren't typically big enough to damage the company, so it doesn't honestly mind (despite woe-is-me public protest) when compared to all the other times it got away with gouging without consequence. The only party that really needs help, the consumer, is the one who gets totally screwed - the consumer either forgoes the medication or pays the massive hike and never gets reimbursed - it's like a hidden sales tax.

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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday December 09 2016, @05:34PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Friday December 09 2016, @05:34PM (#439260)

    Did you miss the part where the UK government actually provides healthcare to the Queen's subjects?
    And the healthy subjects provide the tax which pays for the government.
    So the government isn't a random third party, it's got a vested interest.

    • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday December 10 2016, @01:22AM

      by hemocyanin (186) on Saturday December 10 2016, @01:22AM (#439532) Journal

      That's a fair point. How about when this kind of thing happens in the US though?