What will come first? Clarity on the Iowa caucus results or lower drug prices?
1. Let’s Go
This week’s State of the Union address gave a hat tip to the Prescription Drug Pricing Reduction Act, which could penalize price hikes and help seniors afford prescription drugs. Let’s get drug pricing reform over the finish line in 2020. — (USA Today)
2. A Scam Cloaked in Benevolence
Week in Review scribe Juliana Keeping testified before the House Way and Means Health Subcommittee this week on the impact of high drug costs for patients — including her 7-year-old, who has cystic fibrosis. — (News 9)
3. NEGOTIATE
If taxpayers negotiated for prescription drugs in Medicare like the VA already does, on insulin alone, we’d all save $4.4 billion in a year, a new analysis finds. — (STAT)
4. Smacked
Activists and the U.S. government are smacking Big Pharma’s Gilead around in court. Taxpayer investment spurred HIV-preventive drugs, and patients are loosening Gilead’s decade-long grip on the drugs’ monopoly. — (VICE)
5. Top Issue
Drug pricing is top-of-mind for 2020 voters. Hear from Clayton McCook, an Oklahoma dad whose daughter lives with Type 1 diabetes. The price of the insulin his 11-year-old needs to live has doubled since her diagnosis at age 3. — (Tradeoffs)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Juliana Keeping, a patient advocate and communications director for Patients For Affordable Drugs Now, will testify before the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health today at the hearing, “More Cures for More Patients: Overcoming Pharmaceutical Barriers.”
Juliana is the mom to 7-year-old Eli, who has a life-threatening genetic illness called cystic fibrosis. She will share with the subcommittee her family’s experiences with pharma-funded patient assistance programs, including being unable to afford a drug her son needed to stay healthy when funding from a program was not available.
“The undercurrent in all of this is that families like mine are fighting every day not just to keep our children healthy but to keep them alive. Big Pharma has manipulated my family, placing us in an unfair situation when it comes to paying for our drugs with patient assistance programs,” Keeping tells the subcommittee in her written remarks.
“We are dependent on these programs to ensure my son gets the medication he needs to stay healthy and alive. We live each day at their mercy as drug companies get richer off of their games to keep prices high and patients in limbo.”
The hearing will be held at 2:00 PM at 1100 Longworth House Office Building. Watch the hearing here and read Juliana’s prepared remarks here.
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Did you know: You could buy Super Bowl tickets for you and three of your closest friends and still spend less than you would on a month’s supply of the hepatitis C medication Harvoni.
1. States Lead the Way
The federal government is dragging its feet on drug pricing reforms — but states are moving. Michigan and Nevada are launching initiatives to investigate drug pricing while Illinois just capped out-of-pocket cost for insulin. — (Bridge MI, The Nevada Independent, Chicago Tribune)
2. Paying Twice
A quarter of new drugs developed during the past decade had key, late-stage contributions from taxpayer-funded research, a new study shows. — (Annals of Internal Medicine)
3. Drugs Don’t Work if People Can’t Afford Them!
A new poll found that nearly half of adults denied drug coverage didn’t fill the prescription.You know what would solve this problem? LOWER DRUG PRICES! — (NPR)
4. Stunning Stat
Specialty drugs make up 2.2 percent of prescriptions but account for halfof drug costs, a new analysis shows. — (Modern Healthcare)
5.Sickle Cell Drug WAY Too Expensive
Drug pricing watchdog ICER found that the price of a new sickle cell disease drug, Oxbryta, would have to be cut by 90 percent to represent the true value of the drug. — (FiercePharma)
The only thing harder than tying milk, drug prices, and impeachment together in a joke? Actually lowering drug prices.
1. The Swarm
Big Pharma blasted through another all-time lobbying record, to the tune of $120 million. More pharma boots on the ground means patient voices are more critical now than ever. ✊ — (STAT)
2. Momentum Builds
Momentum is building for real reform in 2020. And Patients For Affordable Drugs is keeping up the fight! Watch a special message from our founder. — (P4AD)
3. ?hole Closed?
A widely loathed coverage gap in Medicare Part D has closed. But seniors are still being exposed to extreme drug costs, and more Congressional reform is needed. — (The New York Times)
4. Free-For-All
Government spending on drugs is outpacing inflation even after manufacturer rebates are accounted for. In other words, we’re all getting mugged behind the scenes while bad actors rake it in. — (Axios)
5. Pass That Bill!
HHS Secretary Alex Azar called the bipartisan Prescription Drug Pricing Reduction Act from Senators Grassley and Wyden “incredible,” and said, “We’ve got to get that package to the Senate floor.” We agree! Leader McConnell, the gavel’s all yours. — (The Washington Post)
1.LOL
This week, pharma CEOs convened to pitch ideas on how to lower drug prices. Not one offered lower prices as a solution. ? — (CNBC)
2. Triple for Taxpayers
Multiple sclerosis drugs tripled in cost to Medicare and Medicaid in the last seven years. So far, 2020 is more of the same. — (Science Daily)
3. Out of Touch
Insulin maker Eli Lilly is touting new, lower-priced insulin. Too bad $265 isn’t a deal. — (Reuters)
4. Why are Drug Prices So High?
One big cause: patent abuse. How do we fix that? I-MAK’s Priti Krishtel explains. — (TEDWomen)
5. Zolgensma Dystopia
Parents should not have to play the lottery for the health of their children. We need to put an end to Big Pharma’s predatory tactics. — (CTVNews)
1. 500+ Drug Price Hikes
Our new analysis shows how pharma raised prices in January on 524 drugs. Congress, stop the madness. — (P4AD)
2. Pressure Builds
All of these price hikes set the stage for a 2020 fight. Voter anger is only going to grow, and this year, America heads to the polls. — (The Hill)
3. Patent Abuse Poster Child
Humira’s price increases continue to defy logic, and gravity. — (The Washington Post)
It shouldn’t be just another day in drug pricing. But it is. — (Reuters)
New year, new you, same prescription drug price hikes.
1. Business as Usual
Pharma rang in 2020 by unleashing hundreds of drug price hikes. Congressional action is sorely needed, for patients like Genevieve and all of us. — (Reuters)
2. The Smirk
A look back at the big flashpoints in the decade drug pricing rose to the top of the nation’s conscience. Voter anger is set to explode in 2020. — (NPR)
3. 2019
We’d be remiss not to reflect back on the progress made on drug pricing in 2019. Momentum continues to build. — (P4ADNow)
4. Encouraging
In California, the court has denied pharma’s attempt to block the implementation of AB 824, a law to deter collusive agreements that slow affordable prescription drugs from reaching the market. — (AG Xavier Becerra via Twitter)
5. Idea:
If we stop shoveling profits into Big Pharma executive pay packages, stock buybacks, and dividends, these companies would start behaving themselves, create actual innovative drugs, and stop robbing the public. — (NBC)
Goodbye, 2019. Hello, 2020! Here is a look at the year in review in prescription drug pricing:
1. States Take a Stand
In 2019, states passed a record number of laws to rein in high drug prices. California lawmakers passed a groundbreaking bill that would deter Big Pharma from cutting abusive “pay-for-delay” deals. Massachusetts became the first state in the nation to grant its Medicaid program the power to negotiate lower drug prices and to hold companies that refuse to come to the table accountable. Maryland made history by establishing a drug affordability board. And in Maine, bipartisan efforts resulted in a comprehensive slate of prescription drug pricing laws including importation, a prescription drug affordability board, and transparency measures.
2. Federal Momentum Grows
The CREATESAct cleared Congress as part of a year-end spending agreement. The bill is expected to save the government $4 billion over 10 years by closing a loophole that had prevented generics from coming to market. Drugs impacted include Revlimid, which costs Part D beneficiaries as much as $2,600 for the first month’s supply. While taken by only 37,500 Americans on Medicare Part D, the drug carried the highest total spending for any drug in the program in 2017. Overdue? Yes. The least Congress could do? Yes. But we’ll take it.
3. Patient Voices Grow Louder
Patients across America are continuing to speak out against ever-increasing prescription drug prices. They’ve testified in statehouses and in Washington, DC and met with legislators in dozens of in-person meetings. And they’ve shared more than 20,000 of their stories with Patients For Affordable Drugs that detail the heartbreaking choices they’re forced to make to afford prescriptions, from skipping doses, to cutting pills in half, to forgoing food. The stories of our brave patient advocates can be found here.
4. Pharma Loses Its Edge
Pharma is losing its edge in Washington. The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) passed the House before year’s end. Stripped from the deal were enhanced biologic patent exclusivity periods in Mexico and Canada that would have blocked competition and kept prices high. The deal is evidence that progress on drug pricing in gridlocked Washington and in the face of the deep-pocketed drug lobby is possible.
5. It’s Not Perfect, But It’s Progress
We know the road ahead is long, but let’s not forget how far we’ve come. House passage of H.R. 3, the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act, marked a major victory in the fight for lower drug prices. The landmark legislation would expand Medicare benefits, support innovation, and save America billions of dollars from lower drug prices. The bipartisan Prescription Drug Pricing Reduction Act of 2019cleared the Senate Finance Committee and would cap how much drugmakers could hike prices on medications in Medicare, for the first time, ever. Congress will have another opportunity to work together as it sets about this spring to fund popular health extenders.
