The U.S. Congress may intervene on how much companies can charge for
some drugs following a move last year by Turing Pharmaceuticals to
ratchet up the price of a treatment for deadly parasite infections by
5,000 percent, Roche's head of pharmaceuticals said.
Roche's Dan O'Day is convinced the oncology portfolio at the world's
biggest maker of cancer drugs will not be affected, arguing it offers
innovative treatments for diseases with few other options.
O'Day acknowledged Turing's price hike for Daraprim had galvanized
U.S. public concern as well as political will to tackle drugmakers who
are perceived as abusing pricing power to gouge patients.
"It's really a misuse of the system," O'Day said. "And there very
well may be some legislation that stops that from happening."
Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have been campaigning on the issue.
U.S. prices for the world's 20 top-selling medicines are, on average,
three times higher than in Britain, according to an analysis carried
out for Reuters for last year.
Novartis Chief Executive Officer Joe Jimenez, whose company includes
the Sandoz generics unit, said on Wednesday he expects the U.S. pricing
environment to grow "more difficult".
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