20 March 2017 - The drug pricing debate focuses too much on President Donald Trump's Twitter account, and too little on the fact that price hikes don't work that well any more.

According to a report it released Monday, Eli Lilly had a 50% off sale on its drugs in the U.S. in 2016, giving half the list price of its medicines back to insurers and pharmacy benefit managers, on average. It raised list prices by 14%, but only received 2.4% of that increase. Especially in competitive drug classes, payers have gotten very good at squeezing discounts from drugmakers. 

Lilly's data back up an oft-repeated pharma complaint, that pricing talk focuses far too much on list prices, rather than what's actually paid.

Read Bloomberg article