Pharma executives have grown so comfortable, and so certain that the Trump Administration will back whatever they do, that they are still pricing Americans out of the life-saving prescriptions they need, and then justifying it in the name of shareholders’ rights. Nirmal Mulye, the CEO of Nostrum Laboratories, was the latest to do so: Nostrum raised the price for a bottle of bladder infection antibiotics from $475 to $2,400 — quadruple its last price–in the name of free market competition. Mulye’s decision is a page out of the book of fallen pharma exec — and “most hated man in America” — Martin Shkreli.

How can pharma executives, and their lobbyists, live with themselves, gouging the public so shamelessly? Congress was pressured not to allow reasonably priced drugs to be sourced in more humane Canada – knowing that patients are either dying because they cannot afford the cost or are going without. You get the impression that, in return for election funds some Congressmen will agree to anything. We know who is responsible for that!

I used to work for a major international pharma company. Not all drug breakthroughs by any means are due to government or university research, but a large proportion of them are. And yet Big Pharma still justifies its pricing on “research costs”. Actually, much the cost to pharma companies comes in commercialisation. The ideas come from elsewhere, but we are paying a high price anyway. Long live the British National Health Service and the brother health services of Europe, Canada, Australia etc.

Some people have claimed that if public pressure grows the CEOs will feel the heat, maybe enough to walk back their outrageous price hikes. Don’t hold your breath!