AbbVie Inc.’s pricing practices for some of its top-selling medicines are expected to face fresh scrutiny from federal lawmakers Tuesday, the latest effort by members of Congress probing the cost of prescription drugs.
Democratic members of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform have been investigating how AbbVie sets the prices of some of its products, including its top-selling immunology drug, Humira.
At a hearing, the committee is scheduled to question AbbVie Chief Executive Richard Gonzalez.
He is expected to face questions about price increases for Humira as well as AbbVie’s patents and other efforts to protect the drug from competition from lower-priced copies known as biosimilars.
The company “seeks to overwhelm potential competitors with the sheer number of patents on Humira regardless of whether individual patents were properly granted under U.S. law,” committee Democrats wrote in a report released before the hearing. “If one patent is invalidated, AbbVie has another patent waiting.”
