Orphan Drugs Should Be Rarer, Insurers Urge, Citing Price Increases

FDA can improve drug pricing by limiting the number of orphan designations, AHIP argues; worryingly for industry, the agency appears to be already thinking along similar lines.

FDA is again being pulled into the drug pricing debate, this time by insurance companies with a report suggests that drugmakers may be exploiting orphan drug designation for economic gain with the non-orphan use of these treatments.

According to the report by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), drugs being used primarily for the treatment of non-orphan indications saw higher average wholesale price increases compared with those used almost exclusively in the

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