US pharma companies use loopholes to keep prices high

Pharmaceutical companies in the USA are managing to keep drug prices high, even those with generic alternatives, by circumventing restrictions imposed by third-party payers responsible for negotiating the prices and paying for prescription drugs, say two US-based authors.

Using the example of Horizon Pharma's Duexis [ibuprofen/famotidine], Aaron Hakim and Dr Joseph Ross of Yale University School of Medicine (New Haven, CT) show how Horizon has introduced a series of price increases for Duexis and bypassed the restrictions put in place by pharmaceutical benefit managers to manage the use of high-cost prescription drugs.

Duexis was approved in 2011 by the US FDA and was marketed at a wholesale price...