Untouchable pharma manufacturers
Pfizer agreed to halt the increase of its drug prices after President Trump talked with its executives, but that doesn’t mean other companies haven’t been ramping up prices.
According to Wells Fargo, in June and the first few days of July, pharmaceutical manufacturers raised the prices of 104 drugs (!!!). Teva Pharmaceutical raised prices of their drugs by 9 percent, and Novo Nordisk raised the price of an insulin drug by percent. Novo Nordisk spokesman Ken Inchausti had this to say about the price increase:
We don’t intend to reverse our list price increases, which are in line with our promise to keep annual list price increases below 10%.
Although President Trump successfully deterred Pfizer from raising their prices, he still did not eliminate the problem. Unfortunately, drug prices are out of the president’s control for now – other than creating a PR nightmare for companies like Pfizer, there’s only so much the Trump administration can do.
In fact, Pfizer will still increase its prices – it will just occur next year. For example, a 90-pill bottle of Lipitor was $820 last year; next year, it will be $983 – nearly a 20 percent increase in a drug on which many people rely.
Drug companies can only increase prices by so much and so often, otherwise they would receive extreme backlash. However, they are still raising profits significantly at the expense of consumers, and the president can only do so much to stop this.
Featured image via PxHere
