, Columnist
Pharma's Pricing Troubles Will Get Worse in 2017
And it will be driven more by private payers than by politics.
This article is for subscribers only.
The defining story of the past year in biopharma has been drug pricing, as much as the industry might wish otherwise.
But though much of the anxiety has been over politically driven criticism and the potential for government price curbs, the only real pricing pressure in the U.S. has come from the private sector. Pharmacy benefit managers have gotten more aggressive about refusing to cover certain drugs and negotiating discounts, which means biopharma's annual and biannual price hikes on aging drugs aren't nearly the sales drivers they used to be.