Drug­mak­ers sue HHS for try­ing to add prices to DTC ads

Am­gen, Mer­ck, Eli Lil­ly and the As­so­ci­a­tion of Na­tion­al Ad­ver­tis­ers on Fri­day sued the De­part­ment of Health and Hu­man Ser­vices (HHS) be­cause of a rule­mak­ing that would re­quire phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal list prices to be shown in di­rect-to-con­sumer (DTC) drug ad­ver­tise­ments on tele­vi­sion.

The rule, which was fi­nal­ized in May and is set to take ef­fect in Ju­ly, re­quires that tele­vi­sion ad­ver­tise­ments for pre­scrip­tion drugs or bi­o­log­i­cal prod­ucts with a list price of $35 or more con­tain a state­ment in­di­cat­ing the Whole­sale Ac­qui­si­tion Cost (al­so re­ferred to as WAC or the list price) for a typ­i­cal 30-day reg­i­men or for a typ­i­cal course of treat­ment.

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