US: Drug makers sued over insulin price-fixing

Eleven diabetes patients have filed a lawsuit in a federal court in Massachusetts accusing three big pharmaceutical companies of inflating the prices of lifesaving drugs by 150 percent and harming patients in the process.

Diabetes sufferers, who need daily doses of insulin to survive, watched as Sanofi, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly jacked up the price of insulin from $25 per prescription to as much $300-400 over five years, according to the complaint filed Monday.

Drug manufacturers usually rationalize drug price increases by claiming the high costs of research and development. In this instance, the plaintiffs claim, manufacturers admitted their price hikes were neither related to such costs nor any jump in production expenses.

The suit referred to a February 2016 op-ed written by an endocrinologist in the New York Times, which revealed the price hike had nothing to do with production costs.

The lawsuit cites examples of how the opaque drug-pricing system left many people unable to afford their insulin treatment, which can cost some patients up to $900 a month.

Full Content: RT

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