What did the House investigation find about Imbruvica?
AbbVie and Janssen raised Imbruvica's price nine times since its 2013 launch, to $181,529 per year — an 82% increase — with the House report saying AbbVie pursued patent strategies and orphan-drug protections to block competition.
The House Oversight Committee's investigation also covered AbbVie's cancer drug Imbruvica (ibrutinib), sold with Janssen. The committee found AbbVie and Janssen had raised Imbruvica's price nine times since its 2013 launch, so that by 2021 it cost $181,529 a year for a patient taking three pills a day, compared with $99,776 at launch, an 82% increase.
The report said AbbVie pursued a variety of tactics including abusing orphan drug protections to further block competition, alongside patent strategies and anticompetitive pricing. It concluded that price hikes on both Humira and Imbruvica contributed to billions of dollars in corporate profits and enriched company executives while harming patients and taxpayers. AbbVie disputed the characterisation, arguing its drugs deliver significant clinical value and that its pricing and patent practices were lawful.