The politics behind drug shortages: Senators talk issues with generics market, CMS payments

The gener­ic drug mar­ket took cen­ter stage Tues­day at a Sen­ate Fi­nance Com­mit­tee hear­ing on drug short­ages as law­mak­ers on Capi­tol Hill work to rem­e­dy some dire sit­u­a­tions for crit­i­cal med­i­cines.

The hear­ing comes as the US is in the thick of sev­er­al se­vere short­ages for com­mon­ly used drugs, in­clud­ing can­cer drugs, AD­HD meds and an­tibi­otics.

Sen­ate Fi­nance Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR) blamed a com­bi­na­tion of “mar­ket fail­ures” for dri­ving on­go­ing short­ages, point­ing to is­sues with gener­ics man­u­fac­tur­ing and phar­ma­cy ben­e­fit man­agers.

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