Democrats attack drug prices

Standing on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol in front of posters of CEO Martin Shkreli of Turing Pharmaceuticals AG (New York, N.Y.) and Chairman and CEO Michael Pearson of Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. (TSX:VRX; NYSE:VRX), nine U.S. House Democrats Tuesday launched the Affordable Drug Pricing Task Force.

The legislators portrayed Shkreli and Pearson as representative of the entire biopharmaceutical industry and vowed to fight relentlessly to limit drug prices. They called for Congress to give CMS authority to negotiate the price of drugs purchased by Medicare, and to take other unspecified steps to prevent companies such as Valeant and Turing from profiting from dramatic increases in the prices of generic drugs. ...