Leaked internal emails appear to show employees at one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies calling for “celebration” over price hikes of cancer drugs, an investigation has revealed.
Staff at Aspen Pharmacare reportedly plotted to destroy stocks of life-saving medicines during a price dispute with the Spanish health service in 2014.
After purchasing five different cancer drugs from British firm GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the company tried to sell the medicines in Europe for up to 40 times their previous price, reported The Times.
In 2013, the price of one pack of a chemotherapy drug called busulfan, used to treat leukaemia, rose from £5.20 to £65.22 in England and Wales, according to the newspaper.
The other four drugs, including leukeran, also used by leukaemia patients, and melphalan, for skin and ovarian cancers, also became up to four times more expensive.
Price rises for generic cancer drugs, such as those acquired by Aspen, cost the NHS in England around £380m a year for prescriptions dispensed outside hospitals, the European Cancer Congress has estimated.
In a confidential email published by The Times, an Aspen employee appeared to write: “We’ve signed new reimbursement and price agreement successfully: price increases are basically on line with European target prices (Leukeran, a bit higher!)... Let’s celebrate!”
When bargaining over drug prices in Spain, the pharmaceutical giant is said to have threatened to stop selling the cancer treatments unless the Health minister agreed to price rises of up to 4,000 per cent, reported Spanish daily El Confidencial Digital at the time.
Now another leaked email appears to reveal that staff at Aspen discussed destroying their supplies of the drug in the row.
13 ways to help prevent cancer
13 show all 13 ways to help prevent cancer
1/13 Stopping smoking. This notoriously difficult habit to break sees tar build-up in the lungs and DNA alteration and causes 15,558 cancer deaths a year
2/13 Avoiding the sun, and the melanoma that comes with overexposure to harmful UV rays, could help conscientious shade-lovers dodge being one of the 7,220 people who die from it
3/13 A diet that is low in red meat can help to prevent bowel cancer, according to the research - with 30 grams a day recommended for men, and 25 a day recommended for women
4/13 Foods high in fibre, meanwhile, can further make for healthier bowels. Processed foods in developed countries appear to be causing higher rates of colon cancer than diets in continents such as Africa, which have high bean and pulse intakes
5/13 Two servings of fruit and three servings of vegetables a day were given as the magic number for good diet in the research. Overall, diet causes only slightly fewer cancer deaths than sun exposure in Australia, at 7,000 a year
6/13 Obesity and being overweight, linked to poor diet and lack of exercise, causes 3,917 deaths by cancer a year on its own Getty
7/13 Dying of a cancer caused by infection also comes in highly, linked to 3,421 cancer deaths a year. Infections such as human papilloma virus - which can cause cervical cancer in women - and hepatitis - can be prevented by vaccinations and having regular check-ups
8/13 Cutting back on drinks could reduce the risk of cancers caused by alcohol - such as liver cancer, bowel cancer, breast cancer and mouth cancer - that are leading to 3,208 deaths a year 2014 Getty Images
9/13 Sitting around and not getting the heart pumping - less than one hour's exercise a day - is directly leading to about 1,800 people having lower immune functions and higher hormone levels, among other factors, that cause cancers 2011 Getty Images
10/13 Hormone replacement therapy, which is used to relieve symptoms of the menopause in women, caused 539 deaths from (mainly breast) cancer in Australia last year. It did, however, prevent 52 cases of colorectal cancers 2003 Getty Images
11/13 Insufficient breastfeeding, bizarrely, makes the top 10. Breastfeeding for 12 months could prevent 235 cancer cases a year, said the research AFP/Getty Images
12/13 Oral contraceptives, like the Pill, caused about 105 breast cancers and 52 cervical cancers - but it also prevented about 1,440 ovarian and uterine (womb) cases of cancer last year 2006 Getty Images
13/13 Taking aspirin also prevented 232 cases in the Queensland research of colorectal and oesophagal cancers - but as it can also cause strokes, is not yet recommended as a formal treatment against the risk of cancer
The company, which is based in South Africa and has its European headquarters in Dublin, bought the five drugs from GSK in 2009 as part of a deal worth £273m.
The price increases were made possible by a loophole that allows drug companies to change the price of medicines if they are no longer branded with the same name.
The Department of Health has said it plans to cut generic drug costs after researchers said there has been a sharp increase in the price of cancer drugs in the last five years, leading to their use being restricted in the NHS.
The loophole is designed to make drugs cheaper once ther patents have expired – but if drug companies have no competition, they are free to rise prices as well.
It is “worrying” that several drug companies have increased the price of cancer treatment, a senior pharmacology research fellow at the University of Liverpool, told the BBC.
A ruling by the Italian competition watchdog found Aspen had taken an “aggressive” approach to negotiations in the country.
According to The Times’s investigation, the company said it would stop supplying Italy with the drugs in October 2013 if authorities did not agree to price rises of up to 2,100 per cent in three months.
The Independent has contacted Aspen for comment.
A Department of Health spokesperson said new laws were being introduced this year allowing the Government to “take action against excessive price rises on unbranded generic medicines.”
“No pharmaceutical company should exploit the NHS,” they said, reported MailOnline.
“We are working closely with the Competition and Markets Authority on unwarranted price rises of unbranded generic medicines, and where companies have breached competition law, we will seek damages and invest that money in the NHS."
KurosawaKid on April 14th, 2017 at 14:53 UTC »
My wife has severe Rheumatoid Arthritis and we are forced to keep a low paying county job for her since it costs $2,783.00 a month for her Enbrel which is like a little over 30k annually. Plus the methotrexate, 6 bloodowork panels a year to test levels , 3-5 doctor visits. My employer does not provide good insurance for her condition and so we're stuck with a standard of living where we can't afford to provide more than just the basic needs. This country's medical care-for-profit is a total sham and shame on anyone who goes against single payer. If you forced me to sign up for the draft just so I can vote than you can also provide me preventative care and occasional treatment. If you can't do that, I'm not fucking patriotic about one thing about the USA then. Proud to be 40k in debt with student loans in a field where I'll never pay it back and have a decent life. I know plenty of other countries have it worse, but I feel no shame for my disgust with our nation. we treat our citizens like dirt unless they have wealth.
Without-a-Trout on April 14th, 2017 at 13:40 UTC »
Perhaps the worst example of pharmaceutical corporation misbehavior is the opioid epidemic.
FBI agents arrested former Insys Therapeutics CEO Michael Babich and five other former company executives on Thursday for allegedly bribing doctors to prescribe fentanyl to patients who didn’t need it.
Information on the many doctors who took "speaking fees" in exchange for over prescribing fentanyl for Insys Therapeutics. Some doctors gave up their medical license, some charged and some found guilty of running "pill mills."
The city of Everett, Washington alleges drugmaker let OxyContin flood black market. Everett's lawsuit, now in federal court in Seattle, accuses Purdue Pharma of gross negligence and nuisance. The city seeks to hold the company accountable, the lawsuit alleges, for "supplying OxyContin to obviously suspicious pharmacies and physicians and enabling the illegal diversion of OxyContin into the black market" and into Everett, despite a company program to track suspicious flows.
[2007] In Guilty Plea, OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma to Pay $600 Million. The company that makes the narcotic painkiller OxyContin and three current and former executives pleaded guilty in federal court to criminal charges that they misled regulators, doctors and patients about the drug’s risk of addiction and its potential to be abused. Company sales officials were allowed to draw their own fake scientific charts which showed a lower addictive potential, which they then distributed to doctors.
Purdue Pharma paid 600 million in fines, but they make 3 Billion per year from OxyContin. The Sackler Family 100 percent owns Purdue Pharma and have more money than the Rockefellers.
We see this with other medicines as well. Doctors on the pharmaceutical payroll prescribe unnecessary medications to toddlers and infants.
The pharmaceutical group GlaxoSmithKline has been fined $3bn after admitting to bribing doctors and encouraging the prescription of unsuitable antidepressants to children.
More than 10,000 American toddlers 2 or 3 years old are being medicated for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder outside established pediatric guidelines.
Too Many Babies Receive Acid Reflux Meds, Says Pediatrician. "Parents, concerned by their infant's symptoms of apparent suffering take their concern to doctors, who very frequently comply and prescribe acid-suppressing medications for symptoms and signs that in most cases are not GERD. GERD-mania is in full cry, so to speak."
Edit: Thanks for the gold. Here's a few more:
Scientific American: How Pharma-Funded Research Cherry-Picks Positive Results.
Apparently 1 in 40 babies are "depressed."
Though research does not support the use of antidepressants in children this young, medication of preschoolers, often off label, is on the rise. One child psychologist told me about a conference he attended where he met frustrated drug-industry representatives. “They want to give these kids medicines, but we can’t figure out the diagnoses.” As Daniel Klein warns, “Right now the problem may be underdiagnosis, but these things can flip completely.”
Michigan oncologist Dr Farrid Fata was administering chemotherapy to patients who didn’t need it. Fata, 50, was sentenced to 45 years in federal prison in 2015 after pleading guilty to fraud, money laundering and conspiracy charges. At least 553 victims had been identified.
tallandlanky on April 14th, 2017 at 13:34 UTC »
Don't worry. I'm sure the CEO will be severely punished with a multi-million dollar severance package.