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LONDON (Alliance News) - Having spooked markets on Monday by tweeting about "price-gouging" in the pharmaceutical industry, US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton used a speech on Tuesday to outline a series of proposals to tackle the issue.
On her official Twitter account Monday, Clinton cited a New York Times article which said the price of the AIDS drug Daraprim soared to USD750 a tablet from USD13.50 a tablet overnight. Turing Pharmaceutical, the company behind the drug, has since said it will cut the price of the drug following a wave of public anger over the move, mostly directed at Turing Chief Executive Martin Shkreli after he attempted to defend the price hike.
Clinton, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, tweeted "price gouging like this in the specialty drug market is outrageous. Tomorrow I'll lay out a plan to take it on".
Clinton followed through on that pledge on Wednesday, outlining three proposals designed to prevent pharmaceutical companies from raising drug prices that she would attempt to put in place should she win the US presidency.
Clinton said she would seek to stop excessive profiteering and marketing costs by encouraging innovation and new treatment developments from drug companies. The plan would eliminate corporate write-offs for direct-to-consumer drug company advertising and would put these savings towards helping to pay for simplifying the research and development tax credit and making this permanent.
Clinton also said she would require health insurance plans to put a monthly limit of USD250 on covered out-of-pocket prescription costs, capping monthly payments for prescription drugs in order to save consumers suffering with chronic or serious health conditions hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. She said this would also increase competition for prescription drugs in order to drive down prices and would increase consumer choice by clearing out the Food and Drug Administration's generic backlog and increase competition for specialty drugs.
She added she would prohibit so-called "pay for delay" arrangements which keep generic drugs off the market and would allow Americans to import drugs from abroad, albeit with strict protections in place to ensure safety and quality.
Clinton also said she would require drug manufacturers to provide higher rebates for prescription drugs in Medicare in order to contain the cost of drugs for low-income people, the elderly and those with disabilities.
Having fallen on Tuesday following Clinton's tweet, shares in GlaxoSmithKline were up 1.0% to 1,259.65 pence on Wednesday, with AstraZeneca up 0.8% to 4,198.00 pence and Shire up 1.3% to 4,609.00 pence.
By Sam Unsted; samunsted@alliancenews.com; @SamUAtAlliance
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