The tide may finally be turning against this contentious drug industry practice (GSK)

Joshua Roberts/Reuters

When it comes to drug pricing, the tide seems to be turning against the pharmaceutical industry. “The days of unfettered pricing are long gone,” Jack Bailey, the US pharmaceuticals president of GlaxoSmithKline told Bloomberg News in an interview. While Bailey acknowledges that drugmakers are still hiking prices, he told reporter Cynthia Koons that the moves are going to remain under "deep, deep scrutiny."

That scrutiny's coming both from Congress and presidential candidates who have made it a campaign topic, and the acknowledgment from Bailey is a sign that the drug industry has been put on notice about the practice of sharply raising the price of old drugs.

It's worth noting that, among large drugmakers, GlaxoSmithKline seems to be among the best of the group when it comes to relying on price increases to boost sales.

Forbes recently tallied just how much revenue growth large drugmakers generated from price hikes and reported that GlaxoSmithKline didn't get any. By comparison, Pfizer got about one-third of its sales growth, over three years, from price increases. 

In the interview, Bailey also discussed ways that drugmakers can respond as price hikes become a less reliable driver of growth, and also the pros and cons of a breakup of GlaxoSmithKline, which is one of the world's largest drugmakers. 

Read the entire interview with Bloomberg here.

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