Hospitals say Valeant has yet to provide drug discounts

Valeant Pharmaceuticals' promise to cut prices on two heart drugs have apparently failed to materialize.

Hospitals--which were promised the reductions for Isuprel and Nitropress after raising their prices 525 percent and 212 percent respectively--have yet to receive any discounts, Bloomberg reported.

“Despite their promises to Congress, we’ve seen no reduction in cost nor any improvement in communication,” Scott Knoer, the Cleveland Clinic's chief pharmacy officer, told Bloomberg.

It's not the first time the providers said they have been left waiting. Back in June, many wondered when the price cuts would materialize. The issue drew scrutiny due to the highly-publicized practices of Turing Pharmaceuticals and its former Chief Executive Officer Martin Shkreli.

Bloomberg contacted 23 different healthcare systems and group purchasing organizations (GPO). Of those, only one hospital and one GPO said it received discounts. It appears that some hospitals may be unaware that they have to negotiate any discounts, or that they have been unable to get a response from the company, according to Bloomberg.

Valeant officials said that its work with GPOs means that 90 percent of hospitals in the U.S. should be able to obtain a discount. Valeant CEO Joe Papa said in a statement issued to Bloomberg that the company takes the concerns seriously and has reached out to hospital administrators who said that their calls were not returned.

Valeant has come under fire for obtaining the rights to drugs and then systematically raising their prices by large multiples. For example, after it obtained the rights to Seconal, a sleeping pill that has been on the market since the 1930s and is now used in assisted suicides, it raised the price for a lethal dose from $200 in 2009 to its current price of $3,000.