Posted by Michael Wonder on 20 Apr 2017
How to stop drug price gouging
19 April 2017 - One of Donald Trump’s few universally welcomed campaign promises was to do something about the prices of pharmaceutical drugs.
Most Americans recognise that prices are too high, and are bothered by the rise of pharmaceutical price gouging: the giant price increase for decades-old drugs and devices by the likes of Martin Shkreli with Daraprim or Mylan with the EpiPen. But what few people realise is that the president already has the power to do something about drug prices if he really wants to. If Mr. Trump wishes to show he’s serious about his populist promise, the place to start is by declaring war on the price gougers.
The key power is found in the “import relief” law — an important yet unused provision of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 that empowers the FDA to allow drug imports whenever they are deemed safe and capable of saving Americans money. The savings in the price-gouging cases would be significant. Daraprim, the anti-parasitic drug whose price was raised by Mr. Shkreli to nearly $750 per pill, sells for a little more than $2 overseas. The cancer drug Cosmegen is priced at $1,400 or more per injection here, as opposed to about $20 to $30 overseas.
