Oregon Congressman Kurt Schrader says headlines about spiraling drug prices have lent new life to his bill that would control medication costs.
Early this year, Schrader sponsored a bill to encourage competition between generic drug companies, but it didn’t get anywhere.
The idea was to prevent price hiking by people like pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli. He gained international attention after he obtained the manufacturing license for an anti-parasitic drug and raised the price more than 5,000 percent.
Speaking on OPB’s Think Out Loud, Schrader says now that another company — Mylan — has done something similar with the EpiPen, the bill is getting more interest.
“It looks like we have these copycat types of companies coming in buying up off-patent, older, generic products ... and jacking up these prices," Schrader said. "It’s becoming a learned behavior, unfortunately, by these unscrupulous people and I think that’s what gives our bill a lot more juice at this stage of the game.”
Pharmaceutical manufacturers say high prices are necessary to help pay for the research and development of new drugs.
Copyright 2016 Oregon Public Broadcasting
