How Much?! AbbVie Raises Niaspan Price Despite Study Failures

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Over the past two years, two studies showed the Niaspan cholesterol drug did not benefit patients. Yet AbbVie has managed to maintain revenue generated by the pill using a simple business proposition – the drugmaker has consistently raised its price, Bloomberg News writes. And the tactic is drawing criticism at a time of rising health care costs and ongoing debate over prescription drug prices. The Abbott Laboratories now charges $4.78 per pill, up from $3.50 two years ago, a 37 percent increase. “I don’t know how you can justify it,” Robert Giugliano, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, tells the news service. “The balance of the data suggests that niacin has little if any role in” treating patients with cholesterol problems.

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