President Donald Trump has reaffirmed his commitment to imposing tariffs on foreign-made pharmaceuticals, automobiles, and semiconductors. His stated goal is to reduce U.S. reliance on imports and strengthen domestic manufacturing. To mark the beginning of this initiative, he has designated April 2 as “Liberation Day.” However, while his administration has made bold claims, the exact timeline […]
Daraprim (pyrimethamine) Tablets 25 mg first made news in 2015 when Martin Shkreli (also known as “the most hated man in America” and “Pharma Bro”) was the head of Turing Pharmaceuticals and raised the price of this NDA drug product some 5,000%, from $13.50 a tablet to $750 a tablet. (Shkreli was charged in federal […]
Many years ago, I wrote an article on the influx of Pharmacy Benefits Managers (PBMs) on the cost of prescription drugs (this was before much was really known about how they operated). In that article, I opined that I thought that they would be a great benefit to organizations that were not big enough to […]
Just look around, watch the television, read the newspaper, and what do you see? Seems like very few reasons to be thankful. School and workplace shootings, the political scene is as nasty as I ever remember in my 70 years on earth. Climate change is threatening the future of our children, and the environmental controls […]
I read four articles this morning (here, here, here, and here) about Medicare and how it can take years to get a generic drug placed on the appropriate tier for coverage after a first generic is approved, and it just makes my blood boil. With all the press about lowering drug prices and knowing that […]
I read four articles this morning that blamed high generic and brand name prices on everything from the confusion between list price and transactional pricing (here), to too much drug regulation (here), to PBMs and to the lack of negotiations between Medicaid and drug companies (here and here). I am sure that there are many […]
