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Pharmaceutical firms will still face tough market barriers in Australia after the U.S. failed to convince that country to loosen its drug price control system under a new free trade agreement.
The attorneys general of Illinois and New York have subpoenaed Abbott Laboratories for information to be used in investigations of the company’s decision to increase the price of its HIV drug Norvir nearly fivefold, the drugmaker has revealed.
In a financially strategic move, Pfizer is expected this spring to introduce a new product that combines two of the firm’s top-selling drugs — its cholesterol drug Lipitor (atorvastatin calcium) and its high blood pressure drug Norvasc (amlodipine besylate).
As U.S. and Australian trade negotiators edge closer to signing a free trade agreement, the U.S. is pressing Australia to reform its drug pricing system, which U.S. drugmakers argue is anticompetitive and hurts market opportunities for U.S. pharmaceutical firms.
Drugmakers want to see changes to interim rules adopted last month for the transitional Medicare drug discount card that would ensure pricing information remains confidential, provide flexibility for off-label uses and allow appropriate coverage of first-in-class drugs, according to comments released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) last week.
The FDA last week ramped up its efforts to convince U.S. cities that importing drugs from Canada is a bad idea, releasing details of a second import blitz showing that the only thing Canadian about many of the drugs seized was the postmark on the packages in which they were to be delivered.
As more health insurance plans adopt multitiered drug copays, the widening spread between the lowest-priced generic and the highest-priced nonpreferred brand drug is boosting the fortunes of generics and presenting new threats to brands’ bottom lines, industry observers say.
Following similar actions in other states, the attorney general of Arkansas has sued generic firms Dey and Warrick Pharmaceuticals, as well as Warrick’s affiliates Schering-Plough and Schering, for misreporting their average wholesale prices (AWPs), allegedly fraudulently inflating Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement rates to physicians and other providers.
Generic drugmakers may see reduced sales while brand manufacturers that are the sole provider of a drug sold to hospitals may see increased sales under new federal reimbursement rates established in the Medicare Rx drug law.