By Joe
Hernandez – WHYY
10/23/18
Minnesota’s
top law enforcement official has sued two New Jersey pharmaceutical giants for
“deceptive, misleading, and misrepresentative” price hikes on insulin, a drug
used to treat diabetes.
Minnesota
Attorney General Lori Swanson said the companies arbitrarily inflated the list
price of the drug to negotiate better deals with insurance companies, leaving
Medicare subscribers and those without insurance paying much higher costs.
“Insulin
is a life-or-death drug for people with diabetes,” Swanson said in a statement.
“Many people can’t afford the price hikes, but can’t afford to stop taking the
medication either.”
Thirty
million Americans had diabetes in 2015, about 9.4 percent of the population,
according to the American Diabetes Association. The rates were even higher in
those 65 and older: one in four seniors had the chronic disease.
Swanson
targeted three insulin manufacturers, two of them in New Jersey. Novo Nordisk,
Inc., based in Plainsboro, and Sanofi-Aventis U.S. LLC, headquartered in
Bridgewater, are named as defendants in the lawsuit. (Eli Lilly and Company, an
Indiana-based drug company, is the third defendant.)
A Novo
Nordisk representative said the company is taking the lawsuit seriously and
examining Swanson’s allegations made.
Go
to whyy.org for more
details on the N.J. companies' responses to the litigation.
https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2018/10/23/minnesota-swanson-sues-novo-nordis-sanofi-aventis.html?ana=e_me_set2&s=newsletter&ed=2018-10-23&u=duuvGSBNOnk9yCd7ylmxsA084ac576&t=1540304506&j=84577301
No comments:
Post a Comment