America’s Essential Hospitals and 340B Health yesterday denounced GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) new restrictions on 340B pricing when hospitals use contract pharmacies. Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) said this morning it will keep pushing for “much needed changes” to the 340B program.
“It’s clear the pharmaceutical industry has little regard for making affordable drugs accessible to low-income patients, and GlaxoSmithKline is just the latest sad example of that,” said Beth Feldpush, America’s Essential Hospitals’ senior vice president of policy and advocacy. “This restriction will do nothing more than pad GSK’s bottom line at the expense—and maybe the lives—of our most underrepresented and underserved people.”
“In choosing to follow the lead of other drug companies that are violating federal law, GlaxoSmithKline will weaken the health care safety net and the patients who rely on it for care,” said 340B Health President and CEO Maureen Testoni. “The time has come for the government to impose stiff financial penalties on these companies to bring them into compliance.”
HRSA told 340B Report yesterday, “We are reviewing GSK’s policy and will evaluate next steps as needed.”
A PhRMA spokesperson said today, “Decades of program failure has pulled 340B more and more off course, leaving patients behind. PhRMA will continue to push for much-needed changes that put vulnerable patients back as the focus of the 340B program, not hospitals, clinics or for-profit pharmacies.”
