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Ahead of potential regulation, Johnson & Johnson will include the list and potential out-of-pocket prices of the drugs it sells in television commercials, beginning with Xarelto (rivaroxaban):
Johnson & Johnson said on Thursday it will start adding the price of its medicines to television commercials by next month, becoming the first drugmaker to heed a call by U.S. President Donald Trump for price transparency of drugs advertised directly to consumers on TV.
The healthcare conglomerate said it will include both the list price of a product - the price before any rebates or discounts to insurers or pharmacy benefit managers - as well as potential out-of-pocket costs that patients will pay.
The move, announced in a statement on J&J's website, won swift praise from U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. Last May, Azar's office released a blueprint for reducing the cost of drug prices, which included a proposal to require disclosure of list prices in TV ads for drugs.
[...] Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, ranking member of the committee, on Monday invited executives from seven pharmaceutical companies, including J&J, to testify at a Feb. 26 hearing on rising drug prices.
Also at MarketWatch.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 09 2019, @08:06AM
Rebates are going away. These were a problem because they hid the true drug prices. The cost of giving the rebates could be added to the drug prices (had to be in fact) and was causing weird situations with copayments. For example, you may pay a copayment that was based on the standard price, but somebody (pharmacy, doctor, insurance company, etc. -- not you of course) was getting paid to have you assigned that particular drug.