STAT Plus: Drug maker offers to slash prices on cancer medicines to end European price gouging probe
In response to a probe into alleged price gouging, Aspen Pharma has agreed to slash the prices of six cancer medicines sold across Europe by an average of 73% and also ensure that supplies remain available on the continent for another decade.
In announcing the offer, the European Commission found the drug maker charged “excessive” prices for cancer medicines that were, in some cases, decades old and no longer were protected by patents. In other words, developments costs had long since been recouped. Yet Aspen charged prices that exceeded its costs by almost 300%, on average, even when considering a reasonable rate of return.
