Drug Industry Middlemen Take Center Stage in Senate Price Fight

Lawmakers are ramping up their fight to lower US drug costs by focusing on a handful of bills likely to secure strong, bipartisan support, including limits on fees from the entities that manage pharmaceutical coverage and legislation to encourage generic drug approvals.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Tuesday will mark up a bipartisan drug pricing package, which in part focuses on limiting certain behaviors by drug manufacturers, including using the FDA citizen petition process to limit competition and taking advantage of rare disease drug exclusivity to limit the entry of additional treatments to the market.

Another ...