Pfiz­er los­es close­ly watched court case on kick­backs and sub­si­diz­ing drugs

A New York dis­trict court on Thurs­day knocked back Pfiz­er’s plan to sub­si­dize the cost of one of its rare dis­ease drugs for some Medicare ben­e­fi­cia­ries.

Pfiz­er had at­tempt­ed to con­vince the court that it should be able to help pa­tients over­come a fi­nan­cial bar­ri­er to ob­tain ap­pro­pri­ate­ly pre­scribed med­ica­tion they des­per­ate­ly need, which in this case was the com­pa­ny’s rare dis­ease drug tafamidis, which comes with a $225,000 list price for a sin­gle year’s sup­ply.

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