Aspen pharmacare planned to destroy Cancer drugs in order to push their prices up

Emails have leaked showing that employees of World’s largest pharmaceutical company planned to destroy stocks of life-saving drugs because of price dispute in 2014. The company had bought the drugs from a British firm called GlaxoSmithKline and then tried to sell the medicine in Europe for 40 times their normal price.

In 2013 a pack of Busulfan which is used to treat Leukemia went up from 5.20 euros to 65.22 euros in England and Whales. More to that other drugs like Leukeran and Alkeran also went up four times their normal prices. The price of cancer drugs like the ones acquired by Aspen cost the NHS of England more than 380 million Euros per year for the prescriptions dispensed outside hospitals according to the European Cancer Congress.

In the leaked information from Aspen, one employee had written that: “The new reimbursement and prices have been agreed successfully. The price increases are on the line with the European target prices for cancer treatment with that of Leukemia a bit higher…Let’s celebrate!”

The company is said to have threatened to stop selling the drugs if the prices were not increased by up to 4000% during its bargaining over drug prices in Spain. It has also revealed that Aspen staff had also discussed destroying their supplies if the prices were not increased so that they could create demand.

The company is also said to have threatened several countries like Italy. In Italy, it threatened the authorities that it would stop supplying their drugs if their prices were not increased by 2100%. Being a powerful company, it’s said to be using very aggressive methods to ensure that their demands are met. The increasing of cancer treatment drugs by several companies worries many people especially people suffering from the life-threatening disease which requires regular treatment.