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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?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday December 09 2016, @06:18PM
Now what kinda pinko Commie lib'rul terr'ist atheist Mexican Muslim Jew hippie bullshit're YEW spoutin' boy?! Free market uber alles! Burdensome regulation! Job creators! The poor deserve their suffering! Wharrrgarbl!
...gee, it's almost like you're getting halfway reasonable in your old age. Watch your back, lest our resident alt-right divas start calling you "cuck."
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 09 2016, @06:28PM
Alright - free market. I'll go with that. Free market - no more patent and copyright encumbered monopolies for the pharmaceuticals. They make a new drug, and as fast as they can get it into production, THERE ARE GENERIC VERSIONS AVAILABLE!!
Pharmaceuticals really don't want a free market, and we both know that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 09 2016, @11:20PM
This is the stupidity of how the NHS has been carved up into discrete units, though; if the Department of Health rocked up to Pfizer or whoever and said "We need $BIGNUM of those and we'll pay a penny each, and if you don't play ball we'll piss off to India and ask one of their pharmaceutical companies" then you can guarantee it wouldn't take long for them to roll over. What we have is the ridiculous situation where each individual hospital or trust (i.e. a group of hospitals) each go to *predetermined suppliers* and buy stuff in piles that are orders of magnitude smaller, each getting quoted a different price and sometimes these have *huge* variations.
The latest wheeze is Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs), which will ultimately render down to "who can we afford to sack and who can "absorb" their work". Sensible procurement at a national level could save a metric fuckton of money, but of course that isn't the way to get "inducements" from the private sector, is it? The NHS is suffering the death of a thousand cuts and by the time people wake up to this, it'll be too late to save it.