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| Screenshot of CBS illustration of emails among drug makers |
"Soaring drug prices from both branded and generic manufacturers have sparked outrage and investigations in the United States," the international news agency Reuters notes. "The criticism has come from across the political spectrum. . . . Generic drugs can save drug buyers and taxpayers tens of billions of dollars a year because they are a lower-priced alternative to brand-name drugs," and account for 90 percent of U.S. prescriptions, one official told CBS News.
The suit claims the companies "engaged in illegal conspiracies to divide up the market for drugs to avoid competing and, in some cases, conspired to either prevent prices from dropping or to raise them," Reuters reports. The suit claims the scheme was orchestrated by Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, the American subsidiary of Israeli-based Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.
Teva said in a statement, “The allegations in this new complaint, and in the litigation more generally, are just that – allegations. Teva continues to review the issue internally and has not engaged in any conduct that would lead to civil or criminal liability.”
The 500-page lawsuit "is parallel to an action brought in December 2016 by the attorneys general of 45 states and the District of Columbia," Reuters notes. "That case was later expanded to include more than a dozen drugmakers."
The 500-page lawsuit "is parallel to an action brought in December 2016 by the attorneys general of 45 states and the District of Columbia," Reuters notes. "That case was later expanded to include more than a dozen drugmakers."
Since 2016, generic-drug prices have declined slightly, but "I don't think that means the conspiracy has ended," Connecticut Attorney General William Tong told CBS's "60 Minutes." He added, "If they stopped colluding, you would expect prices to go down dramatically."
Tong said his investigators found "an industry-wide conspiracy" that answers the question, "Why are prescription drugs so expensive?" He said everyone in America is affected: "It affects health-insurance premiums . . . it impacts Medicare and Medicaid, and it is a chain reaction that drives up the price of American health care to unnatural heights."
The latest suit "accuses the generic drug industry, which mainly sells medicines that are off-patent and should be less expensive, of a long history of discreet agreements to ensure that companies that are supposedly competitors each get a 'fair share'," Reuters reports.
from Kentucky Health News http://bit.ly/2Q0NobC
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