| WASHINGTON, D.C. — In response to the news that Big Pharma increased prices on hundreds of drugs on January 1st, 2021, David Mitchell, a cancer patient and founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs, issued the following statement:
“Pandemic be damned, drug corporations started 2021 just like every other year — raising prices by as much as they think they can get away with. Despite the fact that millions of Americans are enduring sickness and hardship from unemployment, reduced income, and lost insurance due to COVID-19, these companies put profits before people. Seventy companies raised prices on hundreds of drugs by an average of almost three times the rate of inflation. This is why Americans overwhelmingly agree that it is long past time to end Big Pharma’s stranglehold on America’s drug pricing system. Nearly 90 percent of Americans want the federal government to negotiate lower drug prices just as every other major nation in the world does. The incoming Biden Administration and Congress must listen to the people and act.”
BACKGROUND:
- According to reporting from Reuters and the Wall Street Journal, seventydrug corporations increased the price of hundreds of prescription drugs on the first day of 2021.
- The average price increase was 3.3 percent — nearly three times the rate of inflation over the last twelve months.
- In 2020, drug companies raised the prices of over 1,000 drugs — including medications directly connected to COVID-19 and related conditions.
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