Sudden Price Spikes in Off-Patent Prescription Drugs: The Monopoly Business Model that Harms Patients, Taxpayers, and the U.S. Health Care System

In November 2015, Chairman Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Ranking Member Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) launched a bipartisan Senate Special Committee on Aging investigation of abrupt and dramatic price increases in prescription drugs whose patents had expired long ago. The Committee’s investigation centered on Turing Pharmaceuticals, Retrophin, Inc., Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc., and Rodelis herapeutics—companies that acquired decades-old, off-patent affordable drugs and then raised the prices suddenly and astronomically. The investigation uncovered a business model that these four companies used (with some variation) to exploit market failures at the expense of patients. The Committee held three hearings