Drugmakers didn’t let up on price increases with the start of a new year, demonstrating the industry’s pricing power in the face of mounting criticisms of prescription costs in the U.S. 
 
 Pfizer Inc., Amgen Inc., Allergan PLC, Horizon Pharma PLC and others have raised U.S. prices for dozens of branded drugs since late December, with many of the increases between 9% and 10%, according to equity analysts. The increases are on list prices, before any discounts or rebates that manufacturers sometimes provide insurers and other... ||||| (Reuters) - Pfizer Inc (PFE.N), which plans a $160-billion merger with Ireland-based Allergan Plc (AGN.N) to slash its U.S. tax bill, on Jan. 1 raised U.S. prices for more than 100 of its drugs, some by as much as 20 percent, according to statistics compiled by global information services company Wolters Kluwer. 
 
 The Pfizer World Headquarters is pictured in the Manhattan borough of New York, November 24, 2015. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri 
 
 Pfizer confirmed a 9.4 percent increase for heavily advertised pain drug Lyrica, which generated $2.3 billion in 2014 U.S. sales; a 12.9 percent increase for erectile dysfunction drug Viagra, which had 2014 U.S. sales of $1.1 billion; and a 5 percent increase for Ibrance, a novel breast cancer drug launched last year at a list price of $9,850 per month, or $118,200 per year. 
 
 Company spokesman Steven Danehy could not immediately confirm the remaining price increases, which were compiled by a unit of Wolters Kluwer Health and published in a research note by UBS Securities. 
 
 U.S. lawmakers, and presidential candidates, have in recent months stepped up criticism of U.S. drug prices trends, driven in part by eye-popping price hikes from companies with recently acquired generic drugs. 
 
 “Medicines are among the most effective and efficient use of private and public health care dollars,” Pfizer said in an emailed statement. 
 
 “It is important to note that the list price does not reflect the considerable discounts offered to the government, managed care organizations, and commercial health plans and certain programs that restrict any increases above the inflation rate.” 
 
 UBS said Pfizer increased prices by 20 percent for anticonvulsant Dilantin, hormone therapy Menest, angina drug Nitrostat, Tykosyn for irregular heartbeat, and antibiotic Tygacil. 
 
 The analyst report said U.S. prices were raised on a total of 105 Pfizer drugs. No price reductions were reported. 
 
 Pfizer is by no means the only drugmaker to raise prices. Research firm Truveris found that U.S. prescription drug prices rose 10.9 percent in 2014, including a 15 percent increase for brand-name products. 
 
 The planned Pfizer/Allergan deal, which would create the world’s largest drugmaker and shift Pfizer’s headquarters to Ireland, would also be the biggest-ever instance of a U.S. company re-incorporating overseas to lower its taxes. U.S. President Barack Obama has called such inversion deals unpatriotic and has tried to crack down on the practice. 
 
 Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton pledged to propose measures to prevent such deals. The merger was also slammed by her rival Senator Bernie Sanders as well as by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. 
 
 Pfizer, which will report its 2015 earnings February 2, posted biopharmaceutical revenue of $45.7 billion in 2014, including U.S. sales of $17.2 billion. 
 
 Also in 2014 the company, currently headquartered in New York, spent $8.4 billion on research and development, $14.1 billion on sales, informational and administrative costs, including advertising, and nearly $12 billion to buy back its shares and pay dividends to shareholders.
– Martin Shkreli attracted no small amount of scorn for jacking drug costs, but he's far from alone. Plenty of other drugmakers have been guilty of hikes, many just since late December, claiming they need to do so to fund "risky" research, the Wall Street Journal reports. Analysts say many of the increases—which the Journal notes are on list prices, before the rebates and discounts manufacturers often provide—hover around 10%. Per Reuters, Pfizer alone, which puts out Viagra and the pain drug Lyrica, among others, raised the prices of 105 drugs at the start of 2016, some by as much as 20%, according to stats put together by info services firm Wolters Kluwer. (Pfizer confirmed some of the price increases to Reuters, but a rep said he couldn't immediately speak to all the reported hikes.) The Journal points out that it's not odd for pharma companies to hike prices right around the new year—but notes that it's somewhat unusual for this to take place now in the current climate, when doctors, patients, and the likes of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have been promising to put a stop to rampant increases. The CEO of HealthPartners, a Minnesota nonprofit health-care provider, tells the Journal that such hikes "are becoming increasingly intolerable for consumers, health plans, doctors and hospitals." But the CEO of Acorda Therapeutics, which makes a drug that helps MS patients walk, tells the paper that cost increases are "our way of insuring that we can survive and develop these programs and bring these new innovative drugs to market." (A pill for hepatitis costs 250 times more in the US than in India.)