On Sunday, the Mayor of Rockford, Illinois discussed the city’s lawsuit against a Big Pharma company that charges an exorbitantly high price for a medication used to treat infantile spasms in babies and the pharmaceutical middlemen that they say didn’t do enough to negotiate lower prices.
The medication represented 2.5% of the city’s health insurance total budget for only two beneficiaries, costing close to a half million dollars for only nine vials of the treatment.
As if that weren’t shocking enough, the medication has been around for decades and at one time the price was only $40 per dose – and now it costs $34,000. For those keeping track, this is an 85,000 percent price increase!
So the city decided to sue the drug maker last year, stating that the company had violated anti-trust laws, which they hoped would inspire other employers to fight for lower prices for prescription drugs.
In looking more closely at their spending, the city realized that it was spending a lot of money on specialty pharmaceuticals, or medication that is more complex and typically treats more serious conditions.
We will be watching this case closely and will keep you posted on the outcome, stay tuned!
Read more here.