July 25, 2017 – Price Gouging

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Anchor lead: The state of Maryland takes the lead in reining in generic prescription drug price gouging, Elizabeth Tracey reports

The state of Maryland is to be applauded for stepping into territory the federal government has been unable to navigate with the passage of a law to rein in astronomical price increases of generic drugs. Jeremy Greene, one author of a recent perspective in the New England Journal of Medicine on the law from Johns Hopkins, explains its implications.

Greene: Maryland has just passed into law the first attempt to make price gouging on off patent essential drugs illegal. Most recently the concern has to do with naloxone, of course this crucial drug for dealing with this expanding opioid epidemic, off patent yet the price skyrockets, old, essential medicines are becoming untenably expensive because of a small group of bad actors who recognize the ability to exploit effectively this loophole in American generic drug policy. And the state of Maryland put forward a bill to say not in Maryland.  :33

Greene says the State, healthcare professionals and patients themselves are all empowered to report possible gouging. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.