For patients and health services, cancer generics are often seen as the affordable alternative to extremely expensive brand-names. A stunning news report in the Times of London reveals that for Big Pharma giant Aspen, they were just another way to make outrageous profits.

Leaked emails from 2013 show Aspen Pharmacare threatening the Spanish health service to cut off its cancer drug supply unless the government agreed to a 4000% price hike.

They even floated the suggestion that they would create scarcity by destroying all supplies of the cancer drugs if their conditions were not met. Since Aspen had a monopoly on the drugs, the Spanish health service had no choice but to surrender to their demands.

Lifesaving drugs should not be a tool to blackmail health services and the patients they serve. Tell Aspen shareholders to divest from this toxic company.

Aspen later applied the same anti-competitive pressure tactic to the Italian health service, pressing for a 2100% price hike. The Italian Competition Authority slammed the company with a  € 5 million fine for predatory pricing, which Aspen is currently appealing. However, Aspen did not notify its shareholders of this fine, a clear violation of its obligations to them.

Now investigations for price gouging have spread to the United Kingdom, where the price of some Aspen drugs rose more than 1,100% during 2013. In a statement, The UK Department of Health noted "No pharmaceutical company should exploit the NHS... where companies have breached competition law, we will seek damages and reinvest that money in the NHS." 

Aspen has used anti-competitive practices to extort cancer patients, gouge several national health services, and deceive shareholders. Do shareholders really want to defend this behavior?

It's time to punish this greedy pharmaceutical giant and stop it from exploiting everyone in sight. Tell the shareholders of Aspen Pharmacare to cut ties with the company and divest now.

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