The United States Senate has begun holding hearings to determine why many drug companies have raised their prices on life saving drugs by as much as two thousand percent.
On Wednesday, the United States Senate began to open an investigation into the pharmaceutical companies and their pricing policies. The Senate is interested in why so many drugs have seen such a sharp rise in prices of late. It is a bi-partisan investigation and is being conducted by the Senate’s Committee on Aging.
The committee has requested documents and information from such major drug firms as Retrophin, Rodelis Therapeutics, Valeant Pharmaceuticals, and Turing Pharmaceuticals. Both Valeant and Turing have been battling a scandal and controversy regarding the recent price hikes of some certain life saving drugs they produce, according to reports from Reuters.
The committee chairwoman, Republican Susan Collins declared that the Senate was going to probe for answers as to why certain drugs that have been available for many years have recently undergone such price gouging attempts by many drug companies. Collins believes it is hurting patients as well as putting an undue burden on the American health care system.
Claire McCaskill, the Democrat chairwoman said that the Senate needs to get to the bottom of why drug pricing has become so out of control in relationship to company research and development costs. Much of the committee’s ire is aimed at Valeant. The firm recently acquired a high blood pressure drug, Nitropress, and immediately raised the price of it 626 percent to $1,346.62 a vial. The company also boosted its heart drug, Isuprel, to $36,811 for just 25 pills and it jacked the price of an arthritis drug over 2000 percent raising the price of Cuprimine to $26,189 for 100 of the pills.
The Senate also wants an explanation from Turing as to why they raised the price on Daraprim. In a 24 hour period, Turing raised the cost of the drug from $13.50 a pill to $750 per pill. On Wednesday, the House of Representatives expects to make a public announcement with regard to the outrageous pricing moves recently made by the drug companies. Many individual states, too, are filing legal challenges against the drug companies with regard to their price gouging tactics.
