Gottlieb Says Feds Will Target Drug Rebates

The administration is considering whether to revisit if drug companies’ rebates should be allowed safe harbor from anti-kickback laws in an effort to help curb rising healthcare costs, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told the Food and Drug Law Institute’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

Drug companies’ “shortsighted” arbitrage have driven up prices beyond the reach of many older citizens and made a mockery of free-market principles, Gottlieb said.

“Such a step could help restore some semblance of reality to the relationship between list and negotiated prices, and thereby boost affordability and competition,” he said. “But beyond discounting, a web of rules and restrictions — some implemented as a result of industry lobbying — prevent truly market-based pricing and competition. Sometimes individual companies seek temporary advantage through the policy process only, in the long run, to erode the primary principles of competition.”