Citing 'substantial benefit' for patients, Sanofi hiked Flublok price 12.5% last season
fiercepharma | June 06, 2018
Amid an industrywide look into pharma's pricing, Sanofi has pledged to limit its drug price hikes to the rate of medical inflation. The company recently tweaked its policy to provide rationale for any hikes above that level, and in the first year of the policy, detailed a 12.5% increase for a flu shot picked up through M&A. Last year, the company's only product to get a price hike above the U.S. National Health Expenditure growth rate was recombinant protein-based flu vaccine Flublok, acquired in the $650 million Protein Sciences buyout. Another 28 price hikes at the drugmaker fell within the NHE growth rate. Early every year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services establishes the rate; last year, it was 5.4%.