New Year, 250 drugs increase in price in the US
Jan 02, 2025
New York [US], January 2: Among them are more than 60 drugs produced by Pfizer Corporation (USA). Typically, Pfizer has increased prices by 3-5% for the Covid-19 treatment drug Paxlovid, the migraine treatment drug Nurtec, and the cancer treatment drugs Adcetris, Ibrance, and Xeljanz.
Bristol Myers (USA) has also increased the price of expensive cancer drugs Abecma and Breyanzi by 6% and 9% respectively. These two blood cancer drugs can cost patients nearly 500,000 USD. French pharmaceutical company Sanofi has also increased the price of more than 10 vaccines by 2.9 - 9%.
Most drug price increases were less than 10%. The average price increase for drugs on Jan. 1 was 4.5%, the same as the average price increase for all drugs last year. Larger increases in drug prices were once common in the U.S., but drugmakers have scaled back their increases in recent years after steep price increases were widely criticized in the middle of the last decade.
Pharmaceutical companies also reduced prices for some drugs on January 1. Among them, Merck & Co (USA) plans to reduce the listed prices of diabetes drugs Januvia and Janumet "to adjust the listed prices closer to the actual prices".
The United States pays more for prescription drugs than any other country, according to Reuters. US President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to reduce drug costs by targeting middlemen in the country's healthcare system.
Source: Thanh Nien Newspaper
