Sen­ate health com­mit­tee in­ves­ti­gates in­haler man­u­fac­tur­ers for high prices

Sen­ate De­moc­rats on the health com­mit­tee are press­ing in­haler man­u­fac­tur­ers over their high US prices and how they’ve used the patent sys­tem to main­tain ex­clu­siv­i­ty, ac­cord­ing to let­ters sent to As­traZeneca, Boehringer In­gel­heim, GSK and Te­va on Mon­day.

Sen­ate HELP com­mit­tee chair Bernie Sanders (I-VT), along­side top De­moc­rats Tam­my Bald­win (WI), Ben Ray Lu­ján (NM) and Ed Markey (MA), au­thored let­ters to As­traZeneca, Boehringer In­gel­heim, Te­va and GSK grilling the com­pa­nies on why they charge be­tween $200 and $600 for their in­halers. The sen­a­tors as­sert that the four com­pa­nies have ma­nip­u­lat­ed the reg­u­la­to­ry sys­tem to fend off gener­ic com­pe­ti­tion and rake in more rev­enue.

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