Fed Up With Drug Companies, Hospitals Decide to Start Their Own
- 6 years ago
Fed Up With Drug Companies, Hospitals Decide to Start Their Own
Several major hospital systems, including Ascension, a Catholic system
that is the nation’s largest nonprofit hospital group, plan to form a new nonprofit company, that will provide a number of generic drugs to the hospitals.
“We are not indicting an entire industry.”
Dr. Kevin A. Schulman, a professor of medicine at the Duke University School of Medicine who has studied the generic drug market and is advising the effort, said: “If they all agree to buy enough to sustain this effort, you will have a huge threat to people
that are trying to manipulate the generic drug market.
We are going to go ahead and try and fix it.”
While Intermountain executives would not name the drugs they intend to make, hospitals have long experienced shortages of drugs
like morphine or encountered sudden price increases for old, off-patent products like the heart medicine Nitropress.
A group of large hospital systems plans to create a nonprofit generic drug company to battle shortages and high prices.
“We’re seeing an acceleration of both shortages and escalation of prices,” said Dr. Richard Gilfillan, the chief executive of Trinity Health, a large Catholic system
that operates in nearly two dozen states and is part of the group.
Several major hospital systems, including Ascension, a Catholic system
that is the nation’s largest nonprofit hospital group, plan to form a new nonprofit company, that will provide a number of generic drugs to the hospitals.
“We are not indicting an entire industry.”
Dr. Kevin A. Schulman, a professor of medicine at the Duke University School of Medicine who has studied the generic drug market and is advising the effort, said: “If they all agree to buy enough to sustain this effort, you will have a huge threat to people
that are trying to manipulate the generic drug market.
We are going to go ahead and try and fix it.”
While Intermountain executives would not name the drugs they intend to make, hospitals have long experienced shortages of drugs
like morphine or encountered sudden price increases for old, off-patent products like the heart medicine Nitropress.
A group of large hospital systems plans to create a nonprofit generic drug company to battle shortages and high prices.
“We’re seeing an acceleration of both shortages and escalation of prices,” said Dr. Richard Gilfillan, the chief executive of Trinity Health, a large Catholic system
that operates in nearly two dozen states and is part of the group.