BioCentury
ARTICLE | Politics, Policy & Law

Exploding 340B

How 340B discounts transfer billions from drug industry to hospitals

May 19, 2014 7:00 AM UTC

More than $2 billion is transferred each year from drug companies to hospitals via deep discounts on outpatient drugs under the 340B program - and that number is expected to increase to $4.4 billion by 2016.

Hospitals make money selling those drugs at full price to insured patients. Now two recent analyses of the numbers suggest that much of the money is not being used for its intended purpose - to pay for the costs of care for poor and uninsured Americans...