What was the "shadow pricing" finding?
The House report found AbbVie and Amgen raised their prices in near-lockstep through dozens of increases from 2003 to 2021 — not undercutting each other to gain market share, but mirroring each other's prices almost exactly.
The House report found that Humira's closest competitor, Amgen's Enbrel, did not act as a price constraint. Instead of undercutting each other to gain market share, AbbVie and Amgen engaged in shadow pricing, consistently following each other's price increases, with their prices mirroring each other almost exactly through dozens of increases from 2003 to 2021.
The report characterised this as a symptom of a market without genuine price competition. The committee also found that Humira had generated about $170 billion in worldwide net revenue since 2003, including $107 billion from the US health system. Shadow pricing is not necessarily illegal, since it can occur without any agreement, but it was presented as evidence that brand competition alone had failed to discipline prices.