House com­mit­tee un­cov­ers how Hu­mi­ra’s price spiked by 470% as Ab­b­Vie ex­ecs cashed bonus­es tied to the hikes

Pri­or to the House Com­mit­tee on Over­sight’s grilling of Ab­b­Vie CEO Richard Gon­za­lez on Tues­day, the com­mit­tee staff re­leased a 57-page re­port fol­low­ing a two year in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to how and why the com­pa­ny spiked the price of Hu­mi­ra (adal­i­mum­ab) and made it the high­est-gross­ing drug of all time.

While the com­mit­tee in­ves­ti­ga­tion and pub­lic lash­ing aren’t like­ly to do ac­tu­al dam­age to Ab­b­Vie’s bot­tom line or bring new Hu­mi­ra biosim­i­lar com­pe­ti­tion be­fore 2023 in the US, the re­port digs in­to how Ab­b­Vie used more than two dozen price in­creas­es, shad­ow pric­ing with Am­gen’s block­buster En­brel, and patent thick­ets to block com­pe­ti­tion while amass­ing more than $170 bil­lion in net rev­enue from Hu­mi­ra since 2003.

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