HHS Sec­re­tary Azar pitch­es nam­ing and sham­ing tac­tics on drug price cam­paign, sin­gling out Cel­gene's Revlim­id

Cel­gene $CELG wasn’t sin­gled out by name in a speech by HHS Sec­re­tary Alex Azar Mon­day, but the big biotech got cast in the role of main vil­lain in his out­line of what ails Medicare — and how that should be fixed.

The price on Cel­gene’s wide­ly used Revlim­id — Ever­core ISI’s Umer Raf­fat made the con­nec­tion to Azar’s speech in a note Mon­day af­ter­noon — was jacked by 20% over the last year, which means that Medicare pa­tients pay an ex­tra $115 month, mov­ing from $575 to $690 per month, for their share of a drug that had cost $11,500 a month in 2015. 

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