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Leading drug companies including Teva, Pfizer, Novartis and Mylan conspired to inflate the prices of generic drugs by as much as 1,000 percent, according to a far-reaching lawsuit filed on Friday by 44 states.
The industrywide scheme affected the prices of more than 100 generic drugs, according to the complaint, including lamivudine-zidovudine, which treats H.I.V.; budesonide, an asthma medication; fenofibrate, which treats high cholesterol; amphetamine-dextroamphetamine for A.D.H.D.; oral antibiotics; blood thinners; cancer drugs; contraceptives; and antidepressants.
"We all know that prescription drugs can be expensive," Gurbir S. Grewal, the New Jersey attorney general, said in a statement. "Now we know that high drug prices have been driven in part by an illegal conspiracy among generic drug companies to inflate their prices."
In court documents, the state prosecutors lay out a brazen price-fixing scheme involving more than a dozen generic drug companies and just as many executives responsible for sales, marketing and pricing. The complaint alleges that the conspirators knew their efforts to thwart competition were illegal and that they therefore avoided written records by coordinating instead at industry meals, parties, golf outings and other networking events.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday May 13 2019, @04:54PM
It's worse than that. You're dealing with a prescription medicine, so you can only (at any one time) buy a version that your doctor has prescribed. That can vary a bit, but if the corporation selling it raises their prices, and the others don't, you've got to continue to buy it from the same source until you've got the paperwork straightened out to buy it from someone else, and if it turns out that the new source is unsuitable for some reason (allergies, wild variations in dosage, etc.) you are stuck with them anyway until you can get the paperwork changed again. So there's a strong inclination to not change when you have something that's working. The name is not the thing.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.