Tag: AbbVie

  • AbbVie gets a scolding from Congress but can keep raising prices

    AbbVie gets a scolding from Congress but can keep raising prices

    Richard Gonzalez, AbbVie’s CEO, has been hard at work raising the price of its best-selling overpriced drug, Humira, along with other drugs. But, instead of passing legislation that benchmarks drug prices in the US to prices paid in other wealthy countries, Congress gave him a scolding this morning. Odds are that any pain Gonzalez feels will be offset speedily by his ability to keep raising AbbVie’s drug prices.

    Congress has been investigating how AbbVie prevents other companies from selling drugs that compete with Humira, an anti-inflammatory drug, and Imbrivica, a cancer-fighting drug.  Humira is the biggest selling drug in the world, costing $70,000 for a year’s treatment. And, it is not available in generic form because the company keeps finding ways to buy off competitors.

    Of course, in the prescription drug world, there is no meaningful competition even when there’s no strategy to prevent competition. Put differently, if there are two brand-name drugs that treat the same condition, both almost always cost a lot.

    The U.S. House Oversight Committee report shows what we already know. AbbVie, like every other pharmaceutical company, spends relatively little on drug research. Rather, a vast amount of its money goes to stock buybacks and executive compensation. In the case of AbbVie, it also goes to suppressing competition and lobbying Congress. Indeed, AbbVie spent $3 million on lobbying in January, February and March of 2021 alone!

    Many claim that AbbVie has violated antitrust laws. But, why does that matter if Congress is not prepared to regulate drug prices? Short of that, AbbVie will continue to apply for dozens more patents and keep hiking up prices for its drugs. Fool Congress once, twice, endlessly?????? Shame on it.

    Meanwhile, Stat reports that J.P. Morgan is bullish on AbbVie. And, for good reason.

    Here’s more from Just Care:

  • Drugmaker charged with paying kickbacks to sell more Humira

    Drugmaker charged with paying kickbacks to sell more Humira

    Humira is one of the top-selling drugs in the US. But, it may be in part because its drugmaker, AbbVie, has paid kickbacks to doctors and nurses to sell more Humira. The California insurance commissioner has filed a lawsuit alleging that AbbVie engaged in a range of illegal activities to promote the sale of Humira, which cost the state $1.2 billion.

    To get doctors to write more prescriptions for Humira, a drug that treats rheumatoid arthritis, the California insurance commissioner claims that AbbVie paid doctors cash and gave them gifts and patient referrals. According to the commissioner, AbbVie also hired nurse “ambassadors,” who claimed to be patient advocates, to make sure patients were taking the Humira their doctors prescribed and refilling their prescriptions. These same nurses also made visits to doctors’ offices with Humira sales reps.

    Over a five-year period, commercial insurers paid 274,000 claims for Humira prescriptions. And, the price for Humira is high in part because AbbVie has been able to get new patents approved for the prescription drug and extend its monopoly pricing power; it has 247 patent applications for this drug alone. So, Humira’s price has more than doubled (increasing 144 percent) in six years.

    AbbVie denies any wrongdoing, claiming that it was simply helping patients, providing “support services,” to them. It claims no interference between patients and health care providers. However, the lawsuit alleges that these nurses placed themselves between patients and their doctors, with a responsibility of keeping patients on Humira and reporting complaints to AbbVie, not the patients’ doctors.

    AbbVie contends that it provided professional services to help doctors with insurance processing, prior authorization, and more, in order to save them time and money. It also takes the position that several of the allegations in the lawsuit included proprietary information that should not be publicly disclosed so that, for now, the lawsuit has been substantially redacted.

    Here’s more from Just Care: