5 Drug Price Increases That Will Have You Seeing Red

Outrageous drug price increases by pharmaceutical companies may seem like exceptions – but they’re more common than you think.
While only a few make the news, drug price hikes have become standard practice in the pharmaceutical industry.
Last year DRX, a unit of Connecture Inc. (Nasdaq: CNXR), studied one-year drug price changes on 3,000 brand-name drugs. The study found 60 had drug price increases that were double the year before.
For 20 of the drugs, prices more than quadrupled…
In a separate study, DRX also looked at 21,000 generic drug price changes. More than 3,500 had prices that had doubled or more since 2007.
The widespread drug price increases are putting pressure on hospitals as well as individual patients. Many of the drugs are lifesaving.
But it’s the truly mammoth drug price hikes that have drawn the most attention…
Drug Price Hikes So Bad Congress Got Involved
The Daraprim episode last year may have been the most notorious drug price increase ever.
Daraprim has been around for 63 years and is used to treat a life-threatening parasitic infection as well as AIDS and cancer. Martin Shkreli, the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, acquired the drug from Impax Laboratories (Nasdaq: IPXL) in 2015 and immediately raised the price per pill from $13.50 to $750 – an increase of 5,455%.

This post was published at Wall Street Examiner on October 28, 2016.