P4ADNOW urges Congress to Reject The Pharma-Backed Bill and Protect Key Drug Pricing Reforms
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, the House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced the ORPHAN Cures Act (H.R. 946) through their markup. This legislation, driven predominantly by the pharmaceutical industry and its allies, would create an unnecessary loophole in the Medicare Negotiation Program — allowing even more drugs to avoid price negotiation, including those indicated for multiple rare diseases — right before the first round of negotiated prices take effect in January. Patients For Affordable Drugs Now urges Congress to stop progression of this harmful bill.
“The overwhelmingly popular Medicare negotiation program is on the verge of delivering savings to nine million patients, and the last thing patients and the taxpayers need is a new loophole for the pharmaceutical industry to exploit,” said Merith Basey, Executive Director of P4ADNOW. “The Orphan Cures Act is yet another industry handout designed to protect corporate monopolies while undermining widely popular drug pricing reforms and overdue relief for patients”
An orphan drug designation applies to a treatment for conditions affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the United States. However, many drugs with multiple orphan indications reach much larger patient populations and are highly profitable for pharmaceutical manufacturers. The industry has spent millions of dollars misleading patients by falsely claiming that allowing multi-orphan drugs to remain eligible for price negotiation will harm innovation. The reality is the 2022 prescription drug law maintains all existing incentives for the development of orphan drugs, and only a small percentage of drugs approved for more than one orphan disease gross over $200 million under Medicare each year, the threshold for negotiation eligibility. Instead, the ORPHAN Cures Act will ensure prices are kept artificially high, unjustly undermining the victories that patients fought for.
- Americans are already paying 3 to 8 times more than people in other wealthy nations pay for the exact same brand-name drugs, and 1 in 3 report difficulty affording their prescriptions.
- Medicare negotiation is projected to save taxpayers $100 billion by 2031 — and thousands of P4ADNOW patient advocates have sent letters and taken digital action demanding Congress vote NO on ORPHAN Cures.
What’s next: The ORPHAN Cures Act is expected to move as part of a larger package advancing through Congress in the coming days. While the path forward is still taking shape. P4ADNOW will continue to fight to safeguard patient savings every step of the way, and we urge Congress to do the same.
You can find a one-pager fact sheet on the bill at the link here.
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Patients For Affordable Drugs Now, is the only national, patient advocacy organization focused exclusively on policies to lower drug prices. We empower and mobilize patients and allies, hold accountable those in power, and fight to shape and achieve system-changing policies that make prescription drugs affordable for all people in the United States. P4ADNow is bipartisan and does not accept funding from organizations that profit from the development or distribution of prescription drugs. To learn more visit; PatientsForAffordableDrugsNOW.org.