Excessive Drug Pricing: What It Is, And What It Isn't

It's difficult to know exactly how to define "excessive" or "unfair" pricing where pharmaceutical products are concerned, and many factors have to be taken into account. Even the EU Commission and competition authorities may be reluctant to pursue cases of alleged price gouging, lawyer David Hull told Informa's recent EU Pharma Law Forum in Brussels.

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Excessive pricing of medicines is never far from the public eye, particularly in times of pressure on healthcare spending, and all the more so since the furore over Martin Shkreli's decision to raise the US price of Turing Pharmaceuticals AG's toxoplasmosis drug Daraprim by more than 5,000% in 2015.

Shkreli's move was certainly an eye-catching maneuver, and one that most in the pharmaceutical company industry were quick to distance...

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