Senate Aging Committee Investigates, Holds 1st Hearing On Off-Patent Rx Drug Price Spikes Titled: Sudden Price Spikes in Off-Patent Drugs: Perspectives from the Front Lines
Committee to examine causes, impacts, and potential solutions to dramatic price increases of off-patent drugs
Washington, D.C.—The Senate Special Committee on Aging, led by Chairman Susan Collins and Ranking Member Claire McCaskill, has scheduled the first in a series of hearings the Committee will conduct to investigate recent instances of abrupt and dramatic price increases in prescription drugs that are no longer protected by patents.
The hearing is titled Sudden Price Spikes in Off-Patent Drugs: Perspectives from the Front Lines and will begin the Committee’s bipartisan examination of this issue. The hearing will seek to provide insight into the causes of these sudden, aggressive price hikes on off-patent drugs and the effect these egregious price increases have on patients’ access to medication. The Committee will also look at how current regulations and public policy may contribute to this problem.
Details of the hearing are as follows:
Senate Special Committee on Aging Hearing
Sudden Price Spikes in Off-Patent Drugs: Perspectives from the Front Lines
Wednesday, December 9
2:30 PM, Dirksen Room G-50
Witnesses for the hearing include: Dr. Gerard Anderson, Professor, Health Policy and Management, Medicine, and International Health, Johns Hopkins University; Dr. Erin Fox, Director, Drug Information Service, University of Utah Health Care and Adjunct Associate Professor, University of Utah College of Pharmacy, Dept. of Pharmacotherapy; Dr. David Kimberlin, Professor and Vice Chair for Clinical and Translational Research; Co-Director, Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Department of Pediatrics, University of Alabama at Birmingham; and Mr. Mark Merritt, President & Chief Executive Officer, Pharmaceutical Care Management Association.
