Turing CEO Martin Shkreli met with a few of his critics in Washington on Tuesday, and according to a New York Times report from Wednesday, he agreed to reduce the price of the drug by about 10%, though that may not be enough of a drop to appease a few of his critics. Piper’s Schimmer acknowledges that the fight over drug prices impacts small, mid and large-cap biopharma stocks and emerging platforms such as gene therapy, but notes in particular that companies including Gilead (GILD), Celgene, Biogen (BIIB) Amgen (AMGN), BioMarin, Alexion (ALXN) and Incyte (INCY) all have high price therapies.
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It was sent by US Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), leaders of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, who are concerned by recent drug pricing practices.
The letter to Valeant Pharmaceuticals is available on the committee’s website HERE. “But exorbitant drug prices are not about one wrongdoer”.
Most recently, the outcry has been driven by Turing Pharmaceuticals, which raised the prices of a life-saving drug commonly used by HIV patients more than 5,000 percent overnight.
The Senate Special Committee on Aging, chaired by Collins, has scheduled a hearing regarding the investigation into drug pricing for December 9, 2015 and will hold additional hearings in the future if required.
With new calls from politicians coming nearly daily for investigations and hearings about the rising costs of drugs, a trade group representing drugmakers is swinging back, arguing that the blame really rests with insurers and regulators.
Democrats on the influential House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday launched a new task force meant to scrutinize the biopharma industry’s pricing practices.
In May, Cummings proposed generic-drug pricing legislation in the House as a counterpart to Sen.
In a letter, the panel’s leading Democrat, Elijah Cummings, and its 17 other Democratic members asked Republican committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz to stop blocking their efforts to investigate possible abuses by the companies.
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The senators seek from Valeant a host of documents and analyses linked to the drugs and their prices, including more information on how much these drugs cost in other countries, how Valeant came to its decision to price the drugs the way it did and whether or not it spoke with the US Food and Drug Administration about the drugs. HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said she would hold a daylong forum on November 20 to talk about ways to speed up drug discovery while making meds more affordable. After news got out that the “pharma bro” was hiking prices on an old drug by 5000%, Shkreli did not backtrack or apologize, he dug in and doubled down.
