Biopharma execs slam a price hike

Prominent members of the biopharma community yesterday attacked a company called Belcher Pharmaceuticals for raising the price of its dehydrated alcohol drug from $1,300 to $10,000, after utilizing an FDA orphan drug loophole.

In an open letter to their colleagues over at Belcher, executives including Alnylam CEO John Maraganore and Ovid Therapeutics CEO Jeremy Levin claimed that Belcher’s profiting off a “technical collating of existing data, rather than true innovation.” In doing so, they were also moving to bolster a social compact they issued last month to address the debate over rising drug costs.

“In our view, seven years of exclusivity based on existing published research is a misuse of the Orphan Drug Act,” the authors wrote.