Drugs, Money, and Secret Handshakes: The Unstoppable Growth of Prescription Drug Prices

by Robin Feldman

Overview

In the warped world of prescription drug pricing, generic drugs can cost more than branded ones, old drugs can be relaunched at astronomical prices, and low-cost options are shut out of the market. In Drugs, Money and Secret Handshakes, Robin Feldman shines a light into the dark corners of the pharmaceutical industry to expose a web of shadowy deals in which higher-priced drugs receive favorable treatment and patients are channeled toward the most expensive medicines. At the center of this web are the highly secretive middle players who establish coverage levels for patients and negotiate with drug companies. By offering lucrative payments to these middle players (as well as to doctors and hospitals), drug companies ensure that inexpensive drugs never gain traction. This system of perverse incentives has delivered the kind of exorbitant drug prices - and profits - that everyone loves except for those who pay the bills.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781108482455
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	04/11/2019
Pages:	196
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Robin Feldman is the Arthur J. Goldberg Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings. She is an award-winning scholar whose work has been called 'absolutely remarkable' and a 'must read'. Feldman has published four books and more than fifty articles, and she has been cited by the White House and members of Congress. In 2017, she participated in the GAO's report to Congress on Artificial Intelligence and in an Army Cyber Institute threatcasting exercise on weaponization of data.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction; 2. The landscape – where do the dollars flow; 3. PBMs and insurers; 4. Pharmacies, doctors, and patient groups; 5. May your drug price be ever green; 6. Solutions.

Editorial Reviews

'This is the book the pharmaceutical industry does not want you to read. Feldman is like a detective, teasing out drug-industry secrets and helping the reader navigate the Alice-in-Wonderland world of drug prices.' David Kessler, Former Commissioner, United States Food and Drug Administration

'In this lucid and supremely upsetting book, Robin Feldman lays bare the multilayered, perverse incentives that reward pharmaceutical companies for hiking their branded drug prices into the stratosphere. Both houses of Congress should be locked in a room until they've read this book and enacted the remedies she proposes. Prosecutors should read it carefully, too.' Roger Parloff, Legal Journalist

''Everyone has a limit. Every budget has an endpoint' cannot apply to an industry that is consistently anti-competitive and monopolistic. Feldman offers potential solutions and exposes the limits inherent in each. Consumers who find this salient will be motivated to investigate further and alleviate their information gaps.' S. M. Mohammed, Choice

From the Publisher