Drug companies snub Trump by hiking prices

Pharmaceutical companies are looking to jack up the prices of prescription drugs.

On Friday, Pfizer announced that it will be increasing the prices of 41 drugs, or 10 percent of its product portfolio by anywhere from 5%-9% starting on January 15.

“We believe the best means to address affordability of medicines is to reduce the growing out-of-pocket costs that consumers are facing due to high deductibles and co-insurance, and ensure that patients receive the benefit of rebates at the pharmacy counter,” Ian Read, Pfizer’s current chairman and chief executive said in a statement.

Chip Davis, Association for Accessible Medicines CEO, told FOX Business that drug companies have maintained a consistent pattern when it comes to price hikes.

“What you have heard and what you reference is consistent with the historical pattern in the branded side of the pharmaceutical industry looking at taking price increases once or twice per year,” he said on “Countdown to the Closing Bell” on Monday.

The gigantic drug maker promised the Trump administration it would keep a lid on prices.

“We have also taken bold action to reduce the price of prescription drugs,” Trump said. “I called up Pfizer. I called up Novartis, and they were great.”

Davis spearheads a trade association representing the manufacturers and distributors of generic prescription drugs.

“Generic and bio similar companies can play a significant role in lowering overall cost and serving as a counter lever to the types of branded prices increases,” he said.

Kaleo hiked the price of its opioid overdose antidote by 600 percent. The Richmond, Virginia-based maker of the naloxone drug Evzio, the drug that reverses opioid overdose, went from $575 per injector to today’s price tag of more than $4,000 for a pack of two.

Davis said there are more affordable treatment alternatives to Evzio.

“Evzio is a patent protected product,” he said. “There’s competition in the market, it’s administered through a different means.”