8 October 2015 - California is becoming the new battleground for drug pricing, with pharmaceutical companies pouring millions of dollars into an effort to head off a state ballot initiative that would rein in spending on medicine.

The California Drug Price Relief Act would require government health programs to only contract with drugmakers at prices that are the same as or lower than those paid by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which typically gets deep discounts on medications from drug manufacturers.

Drug prices have "gone from crazy to obscene," said Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, in a September interview. The Los Angeles-based non-profit organization is a proponent of the initiative. "Every new category of drugs is like 30 percent higher than the previous one."

Drug makers have argued that drug prices haven’t risen as much as they appear because insurers and government programs pay much less than the list price after negotiations. They also note that drug prices haven’t risen as a portion of overall U.S. health-care spending in recent years.

For more details, go to: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-08/j-j-bristol-myers-put-millions-into-california-drug-price-fight