CSRXP: BIG PHARMA BACK AT IT WITH EGREGIOUS PRICE HIKES OUTPACING INFLATION TO RING IN 2025

Brand Name Drug Companies Signal Business-as-Usual Approach to Price-Gouging American Patients in the New Year With Hundreds of Planned Price Increases

Washington, D.C. – The Campaign for Sustainable Rx Pricing (CSRxP) released a statement Thursday on reports of brand name pharmaceutical companies planning price increases on hundreds of prescription drugs to start the new year. According to data on the first 250 medications with planned price hikes from Big Pharma at the start of the month, the median increase will be 4.5 percent, exceeding the most recent 2.7 percent rate of inflation from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“Big Pharma makes a tradition of ringing in each new year with egregious price hikes on hundreds of brand name prescription drugs,” said CSRxP executive director Lauren Aronson. “Big Pharma’s price hikes this January will continue to grow but already outpace the rate of inflation and include significant increases on drugs for serious conditions, like cancer.”

“While pointing the finger at others and spending millions of dollars to dodge accountability, Big Pharma continues to execute a business-as-usual approach to price-gouging the American people,” Aronson added. “CSRxP looks forward to working with the 119^th Congress and the new administration to lower prescription drug prices by holding Big Pharma accountable for egregious pricing practices and anti-competitive tactics that block more affordable alternatives from the market.”

Big Pharma traditionally raises prescription drug prices in two major batches of increases each year, with most increases going into effect in January and a second major round of price hikes mid-year. As Reuters explained in coverage of the first 250 planned price hikes for this January, “[m]ore drug price increases are likely to be announced by other drugmakers over the course of January – historically the biggest month for drugmakers to raise prices.”

Big Pharma’s price hikes have little relationship to any improved clinical value for American patients. According to a December analysis from the Institute of Clinical and Economical Review (ICER), brand name drug makers’ egregious price hikes on just five widely used prescription medications, without any accompanying true innovation, cost U.S. patients and the health care system an additional $815 million in 2023.

Read more on the cost of Big Pharma’s unjustified price hikes HERE.

Read more on bipartisan, market-based solutions to hold Big Pharma accountable HERE.