7 February 2019 - CEOs from Novartis and Eli Lilly have backed US government proposals to cut out “middlemen” in the health system, who have inflated the costs of their medicines.

Novartis’ Vas Narasimhan, and Eli Lilly’s David Ricks backed the proposals to end rebates paid to pharmacy benefit managers and health insurers that push up the prices of their diabetes medicines.

While the justification for the rebates is that they pay for improvements elsewhere in the US healthcare system, big pharma companies argue they don’t benefit as they have to push up prices to maintain profit margins.

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