Drug pricing has been one of the central issues of the 2016 presidential campaign. There is currently a whirlwind of negative public sentiment swirling around controversial pricing practices of companies like Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc VRX, Mallinckrodt PLC MNK and Mylan NV MYL.
With the election only about a month away, there has probably never been a worse time for a drug company to raise prices. But as the tweet below by @AndyBiotech shows, Ariad Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ARIA certainly doesn’t seem to be deterred.
According to the tweet, Ariad has upped the price of its cancer drug Iclusig by 39 percent in 2016. While cancer patients are paying more for Iclusig, Ariad’s share price has more than doubled in 2016, up 121.3 percent.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has been very clear about targeting drug companies that can’t justify their price hikes.
“It’s wrong when drug companies put profits ahead of patients, raising prices without justifying the value behind them,” Clinton said back in August.
Surprisingly, the topic of drug pricing did not come up at the first presidential debate.
Mylan, Valeant and Mallinckrodt shares have all been hammered so far in 2016, down between 4.8 and 76.0 percent year-to-date.
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