WASHINGTON, D.C. — Patients For Affordable Drugs Now is applauding a patient-driven victory as the harmful ORPHAN Cures Act was excluded from the reconciliation text released by the Senate Finance Committee today – protecting the Medicare Negotiation Program from a pharmaceutical industry carveout that would have driven up drug prices and padded Big Pharma’s profits at a time when one in three Americans still cannot afford their prescription drugs.
“The exclusion of the ORPHAN Cures Act from the Senate Finance Committee’s reconciliation text is a victory powered by patient advocacy and a direct rejection of the pharmaceutical industry’s greed-driven agenda,” said Merith Basey, Executive Director of P4ADNOW. “This decision helps protect the popular and effective Medicare Negotiation program and its promise of lower prescription drug prices for millions of Americans on Medicare. We remain vigilant against any effort to revive this harmful proposal, or anything like it, and will continue fighting to ensure every patient can get the medications they need at prices they can afford.”
Over the past several weeks, P4ADNOW patient advocates sent over 13k letters to the Hill, met with congressional offices, and spoke out publicly to oppose the ORPHAN Cures Act – legislation that would have allowed some of the most profitable drugs with multiple orphan indications to avoid price negotiation, despite being widely used and costing Medicare hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Last week, P4ADNow and AARP sent a joint letter to the Senate opposing ORPHAN Cures.
An “orphan” drug designation is meant to incentivize treatments for rare diseases affecting fewer than 200,000 people. But too often, pharmaceutical companies abuse the system by stacking multiple orphan indications to extend monopolies and keep prices high for as long as possible. The ORPHAN Cures Act would have enabled those abuses while weakening Medicare negotiation. To make matters worse, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that this would cost the federal government nearly $5 billion over the next 10 years, an unnecessary gift to drug companies at the direct expense of patients and taxpayers.
Thanks to the leadership of champions in Congress and the groundswell of advocacy from patients nationwide, this proposal has been removed.
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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.