Two prominent US lawmakers on Thursday called on US federal antitrust regulators to probe whether Sanofi SA, Eli Lilly and Co, Merck & Co Inc and Novo Nordisk A/S colluded to set prices for insulin and other diabetes drugs.
The request by US Senator Bernie Sanders and US Representative Elijah Cummings follows a similar letter they sent in autumn last year calling for an investigation into 14 drug companies over price increases of generic drugs.
US prosecutors could file the first charges by the end of the year in their subsequent criminal investigation of generic drugmakers over suspected price collusion, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.
In their latest letter to the US Department of Justice and the US Federal Trade Commission, Sanders and Cummings raised questions about skyrocketing prices for insulin and included a chart showing that many of the price spikes appeared to occur in tandem.
They noted that the original patent on insulin, a hormone used by diabetics to control blood sugar levels, expired 75 years ago.
“Sanofi sets the prices of our treatments independently,” Sanofi spokeswoman Ashleigh Koss said in an e-mailed statement.
Novo Nordisk also said it sets prices “independently” and that it stands by its business practices.
A spokeswoman for Merck said the company does not make insulin. Merck makes other products to treat diabetes.
Eli Lilly, in an e-mail, said it strongly disagrees with the accusations in the letter.
“The insulin market in the US is highly competitive,” Eli Lilly said.
Several generic drugmakers, including Mylan, Allergan, Endo and Taro Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, had previously disclosed that they were subpoenaed in connection with the antitrust investigation.
Bloomberg said the probe spans more than a dozen companies and about two dozen drugs, citing people familiar with the matter.
Impax Laboratories Inc said earlier this year that the department had requested information on four drugs: blood pressure pill digoxin, asthma drug terbutaline sulfate, prilocaine/lidocaine cream and calcipotriene solution, which is used to treat psoriasis.
A Teva spokesman said the company “is not aware of any facts that would give rise to an exposure to the company with respect to these subpoenas.”
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained