FDA head vows to tackle high drug prices and drugmakers "gaming the system"

“Where we see things that we can address, we’re going to take action,” says FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb

Published February 17, 2018 9:00PM (EST)

This article originally appeared on Kaiser Health News.

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said he will do everything “within my lane” to combat high drug prices and that he sees drug companies “gaming the system to try to block competition” in a multitude of ways in the marketplace.

In a wide-ranging interview with Kaiser Health News on Thursday, Gottlieb also said that he wants to speed up the U.S. approval process for generic and “biosimilar” versions of biologic drugs, which are drugs comprised of living organisms, such as plant or animal cells.

“Where we see things that we can address, we’re going to take action,” Gottlieb said, adding that he is most bothered when brand-name companies use tactics to block makers of generics and biosimilars from developing drugs. He deflected questions about whether the FDA approves drugs of questionable value that carry exorbitant prices.

“I think we should have a free market for how products are priced,” Gottlieb said. A free market “provides proper incentives for entrepreneurs who are going to make the big investments needed to innovate. But that system is predicated on a premise that when patents have lapsed you’ll have vigorous competition from generic drugs.”

The FDA, Gottlieb said, worked with the White House on a proposal to bring generics to market faster by ensuring that a 180-day exclusivity period isn’t used by drugmakers to block competition. He said there are “situations where you see deals cut” in which a drugmaker will get the 180-day exclusivity and then be persuaded to sit on it without ever selling the drug — essentially delaying the brand drug from facing generic competition.

Currently, generics makers must buy large quantities of the brand-name product in the U.S. to run their own clinical trials. But the companies that make brand-name medicines, in some cases, are making it very difficult for makers of generics to purchase their drugs, he said.

“They are adopting all kinds of commercial restrictions with specialty pharma distributors and wholesalers” to prevent sales to generic companies, Gottlieb said, adding that not every branded company is using the tactic, but it is “going on across the board.”


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Fda Generic Drugs Kaiser Health News