Drug Pricing Regulation Pushed From Many Sides.

14 MANAGED CARE / JANUARY 2016 When Turing Pharmaceuticals raised the price of its toxoplasmosis drug, Daraprim, from $13.50 to $750 a pill, it captured the attention of policymakers in Washington that drug pricing was out of control. Now leaders in Congress are holding hearings to probe how drug companies set their prices and proposing legislation that’s aimed at reining in spending on pharmaceuticals. Whether this leads to any meaningful reforms is anyone’s guess, especially when you take into account the partisan divisions in Congress amid a year brimming with presidential election politics and the clout of the pharmaceutical industry. But enough stakeholders—consumer groups, health plans, medical societies, the public—may be able to apply enough pressure this year to move the needle on drug cost regulation, even by just a little bit. Already drug prices have engendered cross-party alliances in Congress in a way that few issues have in recent years. The country saw some congressional action when the Senate Special Committee on Aging and its chair, Maine Republican Susan Collins, summoned executives from Turing and three other drug companies to a hearing in December to explain their practices. Specifically, the committee is looking at the strategy of acquiring the rights to existing drugs and then jacking up their prices, much like Turing did with Daraprim and may do with another drug, benznidazole, a drug that treats a different parasitic condition, Chagas disease. The committee also wants an explanation from Valeant of why it increased the price of two cardiac drugs, Nitropress and Isuprel, 312% and 820% respectively, last year after it acquired them from Marathon Pharmaceuticals.