As advocacy groups take a victory lap for moving lawmakers to finally allow Medicare to negotiate lower prices for 10 widely-used medicines, a new report detailed how the makers of those drugs have gouged billions of taxpayer and consumer dollars.
Kyle Herrig, senior adviser for the group Accountable.US, said drugmakers have exploited U.S. patent laws to control prices for decades.
“These kinds of tactics keep prices high for the consumers,” Herrig pointed out. “And often lead to patients skipping doses, disproportionately impacting lower-income Black and Latin American communities.”
Drugmakers have routinely paid competitors to delay the introduction of cheaper generic versions of popular drugs. They have also kept prices high by resetting patent protections by slightly altering a drug to secure a second patent. Drug companies have long argued high prices are necessary to finance the development of new lifesaving medicines.
