I suspect that something very fishy is going on between when the money is “paid” by the insurance company to the money that actually makes it to the pharmaceutical company. I suspect most of this money gets rebated back to the insurer in some form or another.
Reading your link it’s actually an interesting story of an absolute fraud designed to thread a perfect path through all the existing regulations and checks & balances.
There have been a lot of fishy dealings with the drugs that came from Valeant.
They would charge outrageous prices for drugs that were just a combination of generics.
They funneled the scripts to a pharmacy they partnered with. Most insurers would not cover the drug, but the pharmacy knew all the tricks. 80% of claims might get rejected, but they made a ton of money off the 20%.
Reading your link it’s actually an interesting story of an absolute fraud designed to thread a perfect path through all the existing regulations and checks & balances.