The Miracle on Ice turned 39. Patients For Affordable Drugs turned 2. Can we orchestrate the upset of this century?
Welcome to the week in review in prescription drug pricing!
Crohn’s Patient Claps Back
A Crohn’s patient who takes Humira, the world’s best-selling drug from one of the world’s most corrupt pharmaceutical corporations, tells it like it is on NBC Nightly News. — (NBC Nightly News)
Pharma CEOs in the Hot Seat
On Tuesday, seven pharmaceutical company executives will testify before the Senate on rising prescription drug prices. Get to know the price-hiking characters who will make up the Senate Finance Committee panel. — (STAT)
Utah Gets Salty with Big Pharma
Utahns are fed up with federal inaction on drug prices, so lawmakers in Salt Lake City are weighing a bill to import drugs from Canada. — (Deseret News)
Is Pharma planning the next Fyre Fest?
Big Pharma is linking up with prominent Instagram influencers to target millennial likes and their dollars. — (Vox)
Be Wary of the Expert
The drug industry and its hired gun “experts” are targeting and twisting the narrative on drug importation from Canada. — (Tarbell)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Executives from seven major drug corporations will testify before the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday to explain their pricing practices and the fact that American patients and taxpayers pay more for drugs than anywhere in the world. In the lead up to the hearing, Patients For Affordable Drugs Now reviewed the pricing history of each corporation and developed questions patients want answered from the Pharma CEOs.
“We hear every day from patients suffering under the high cost of prescription drugs,” said David Mitchell, a cancer patient and the founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now. “Patients deserve answers, and we need Congressional action to stop this abuse of American patients from continuing.”
U.S. patients and taxpayers spend more than $450 billion each year on prescription drugs, by some estimates, nearly one-fifth of all health care costs. Patent-protected brand-name drugs drive spending, making up only about 10 percent of prescriptions but accounting for three-quarters of drug spending.
You can read Patients For Affordable Drugs Now’s full testimony for the record here. Below please find a summary of pricing practices and key questions for the Pharma CEOs.
ABBVIE INC.
About AbbVie: AbbVie’s anti-inflammatory drug Humira is the top-selling drug in the world. The drug company doubled the price from about $19,000 per year in 2012 to $38,000 per year in 2018. AbbVie secured more than 100 patents on Humira, ensuring that patent thickets will keep competition off the U.S. market. Meanwhile, the company cut the price in Europe by 80 percent for the exact same drug.
Questions:
Is it fair that Europeans have access to a less expensive biosimilar competitor for Humira, but your company bragged about blocking that competition in the U.S.?
Do you partake in pay for delay or deals for delay? Do you support the Preserve Access to Affordable Generics and Biosimilars Act (S.64)?
Since Humira has already been very successful with more sales than the revenue of eBay, will you commit to holding the price of Humira steady until a biosimilar comes to market?
PFIZER
About Pfizer: Pfizer’s history of price hikes is as staggering as it is long. Here’s a look at the last three years: In 2017, Pfizer raised the price of 91 drugs by 20 percent — that was nearly 10 times the rate of inflation. In mid-2018, Pfizer announced price hikes on about 100 prescription drugs. After temporary freezes, Pfizer raised the raised the price of 40 drugs in January 2019.
Questions:
Will you commit to limiting the increase in list price of your drugs to the rate of inflation?
Will you commit to submitting to this committee at the end of this year (2019) a report of the ways you have utilized the $10 billion stock buyback to serve patients?
SANOFI
About Sanofi: Almost 30 million Americans live with diabetes and 6 million need insulin to survive. From 2010 to 2015, Sanofi raised the price of the lifesaving diabetes drug Lantus by 168 percent.
Questions:
If PBM rebates were eliminated, would you lower your list prices?
Will you commit to undoing the dozens of times you’ve raised the price of Lantus and lower the list price this year?
As the Chairman of the lobbying group, PhRMA, your organization spent $27.5 million on lobbying in 2018. Next year, will you agree to take half that money and use it to lower drug prices across the board for patients?
MERCK & CO., INC.
About Merck: Merck is no stranger to drug price increases. From January 2017 to mid-2018, Merck raised the price of Januvia by nearly 20 percent. In November 2018, the corporation raised the price on five drugs, including top-selling Gardasil and Keytruda.
Questions:
Will you submit, for the record, the cost of research and development for the drug Keytruda, which reaped a total of $1.89 billion the third quarter of 2018 alone –– an increase of 80% since 2017?
Your company recently spent $10 billion on stock buybacks. This year, will you commit to decreasing drug prices by that same amount?
JOHNSON & JOHNSON
About Johnson & Johnson: Since 2012, Johnson & Johnson has raised the price of its blockbuster drug Xarelto by 87 percent. In January of 2019, the company raised the price on about two dozen drugs.
Questions:
Will you commit to holding your price increases to inflation each year?
Will you commit to striking a deal with the New York Drug Utilization Review Board if they deem it necessary to decrease the cost of Remicade for state taxpayers?
BRISTOL-MYERS SQUIBB CO.
About Bristol-Myers Squibb: Over the last eight years, Bristol-Myers Squibb has spent over$25 million in lobbying expenditures and $1.75 million in campaign contributions, according to Open Secrets. The company raised the price of its blockbuster drug Eliquis by 6 percentin January 2019. Last year alone, U.S. patients paid Bristol-Myers Squibb $3.8 billion for Eliquis, a 30 percent year-over-year increase.
Questions:
Will you commit to donating 50% less to candidates for public office in 2020 and investing that money toward research and development or decreasing price for patients?
With your recent acquisition of Celgene, will you commit to ending Celgene’s use of the REMS program to prevent a generic from coming to market for its blockbuster drug, Revlimid?
Do you support the CREATES Act?
ASTRAZENECA
About AstraZeneca: AstraZeneca has a history of charging cancer patients high prices. Here are three examples: Imfinzi costs $180,000 per year for lung cancer, Lynparza costs around $15,000 for 112 pills for ovarian cancer, and Iressa costs $8,000 for 30 pills for lung cancer. And before AstraZeneca faced a generic competitor for its high cholesterol drug, Crestor, the company raised prices multiple times, including by about 15 percent right before a generic competitor came to market.
Questions:
Will you submit for the record the following information: the amount you have spent on research and development vs. AstraZeneca’s yearly budget for marketing and advertising?
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SALT LAKE CITY — Utah lawmakers can take a stand today on one of the most important issues facing residents — rising prescription drug prices. A Utah House committee will hold a hearing on legislation that would allow importation of wholesale prescription drugs from Canada, introducing lower drug prices at Utah pharmacies. The bill would help Utah patients avoid making the difficult decision to afford their life-saving drugs or skip doses. On behalf of more than 1,000 patients in Utah engaged in efforts to lower prescription drug prices, Patients For Affordable Drugs Now, a bipartisan national patient organization, strongly endorsed HB 267.
“We applaud the state of Utah for HB 267 — a pioneering approach to reducing the cost of prescription drugs,” said David Mitchell, a cancer patient and the founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now. “Canadians pay on average 30 percent less than Americans for the same prescription drugs. Since Big Pharma insists on gouging Americans, we should all be able to import safe bargains from abroad.”
Testifying at the Utah House hearing today in favor of HB 267 is Meg Jackson-Drage, 50, of Magna, Utah. Jackson-Drage relies on the Pfizer medication Lyrica to alleviate the symptoms of fibromyalgia. She is forced to pay $550 a month — even for a lower dose of the medication than what she needs — due to do the drug’s skyrocketing cost. According to Senate documents Pfizer increased the price of Lyrica by 145 percent from 2009 to 2015, with an increase of 19.3 percent in 2017 alone.
“This bill will not only bring relief to thousands of Utahns like me who have struggled to afford their drugs, but it will also reduce a massive financial expense on Utah taxpayers and patients,” Jackson-Drage said.
The Utah bill would:
Instruct the state Department of Health to apply for a waiver that would allow for the importation of wholesale prescription drugs from Canada to be sold at local pharmacies at a lower costs than prescriptions produced in the U.S.
Ensure a pipeline of regulated, safe, and effective drugs from Canada reach U.S. patients.
Save Utah an estimated $70 million a year.
Pressure US drug manufacturers to lower prices by increasing competition.
Patients For Affordable Drugs Now is a bipartisan national patient organization focused exclusively on policies to lower drug prices. To maintain its independence, the group does not accept donations from organizations that profit from the development and distribution of prescription drugs.
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Welcome to the week in review in prescription drug pricing.
1. Pharma’s GOP force field dissolving
Republicans are eyeing patent reform to lower drug prices. — (Axios)
2. Coast to coast
In California, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to leverage California’s buying power to negotiate drug prices in the state’s massive Medicaid program. Massachusetts Republican governor Charlie Baker wants drug corporations to come to the bargaining table, too. — (KHN & The Boston Globe )
3. Too Much Is Never Enough
Vertex and England have been locked in a battle for three years over the price of the company’s charity-funded cystic fibrosis medicines. As patients suffer, Vertex says it just can’t offer a deal — even after reporting that Q4 profit doubled. — (The Guardian)
4. Our heroes
P4AD named two more drug pricing heroes this week — read more about Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ohio resident and cancer patient Bob Fowler — (P4AD)
5. Required reading
Settle in over the weekend for a deep dive into why drugs are so expensive. — (NY Review of Books)
Two important people wrote Medium posts this week. You maybe missed this one.
Welcome to the Week in Review in Prescription Drug Pricing.
1. News from our founder
Patients For Affordable Drugs Founder David Mitchell shared tough news this week — his cancer has relapsed. Even on his worst days, he is buoyed by the bravery of our community of patients. — (Medium)
2. Exploitation over Innovation
A young man relying on a drug to walk saw his costs rise from $0 to $375k — and all a drug corporation did was grab the patent, add a preservative, and give the product a new name. — (NBC Nightly News)
3. J&J caves to transparency pressure
Johnson & Johnson will begin to advertise on television the cost of one of its medications, giving in to pressure from the Trump administration to list drug prices in TV ads. We maintain advertising tax credits should be abolished, or the ads should end all together. — (AP)
4. CREATES is BACK
Congress needs to pass the bipartisan bill that would increase drug competition and save taxpayers more than $3 billion — (Center for Biosimilars)
5. CEOs to testify
After a dressing down by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), five Big Pharma CEOs agree to testify at the committee’s drug pricing hearings later this month. — (STAT)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In response to comments President Trump made in his State of the Union Address about prescription drug prices, David Mitchell, a cancer patient and the founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now, issued the following statement:
“We appreciate President Trump’s continued focus on the country’s drug pricing crisis. But, two years into his term, prices are still going up, patients are still struggling, and Big Pharma is breaking records lobbying Congress to keep it that way.
“We’re glad the President touched on his plan to bring U.S drug prices more in line with what other wealthy countries pay. The International Pricing Index would lower the cost of America’s most expensive drugs by 30 percent. The plan has merit, and we urge the President to advance this proposal.
“That being said, not nearly enough has been accomplished and additional action is urgently needed. The list prices of drugs need to come down. Patients need Congress and the Executive branch to fix our broken system.
“Every day, Americans experience heartbreaking stress and financial pain due to high drug prices. Ruth Rinehart, of Tampa, Florida’s $52,000 prescription drug costs forced her to declare bankruptcy and lose her family home. The time for action is now.”
BACKGROUND
Drug costs are out of control
Americans spend more than $450 billion each year on prescription drugs — by some estimates, nearly one-fifth of all health care costs go toward prescription drugs.
The main driver of prescription drug spending is patent-protected brand-name drugs, which make up only about 10 percent of prescriptions but account for three-quarters of drug spending.
Americans pay more for drugs than any other country
CNN: “Americans pay anywhere from two to six times more than the rest of the world for brand name prescription drugs.”
The New York Times: “A government study said Medicare was paying 80 percent more than other advanced industrial countries for some of the most costly physician-administered medicines.”
Senate Finance Congressional Testimony: “Revenues generated just from sales in America would fund 176 percent of the global pharmaceutical research and development budgets for these companies.”
Drug prices are rising, not falling
Associated Press: An analysis found that through the end of last July there were 4,412 brand-name drug price increases and merely 46 price cuts—a ratio of 96-to-1.
Health Affairs/Vox: “Prices for drugs of all types and from all classes (brand-name, specialty, generics/oral or injectable) have been rising faster than inflation…from 2008 to 2016.”
High drug prices hurt patients
Kaiser Family Foundation: 1 out of 4 patients report that in the past year they or a family member have not filled a prescription (24 percent) or have skipped a dose or cut pills in half (19 percent) because of the cost.
NPR: “Insulin’s high cost leads to lethal rationing.”
Vox: “It means that our system, even if we don’t like to admit it, has to pick and choose who gets access to lifesaving drugs.”
Drug companies are rich and excessive
The Washington Post: “9 out of 10 big pharmaceutical companies spend more on marketing than on research.”
JAMA: “From 1997 through 2016…DTC prescription drug advertising increased from $1.3 billion to $6 billion with a shift toward advertising high-cost biologics and cancer immunotherapies.”
Axios: “Nine drug companies are spending a combined $50 billion on new share buyback programs…The large buyback programs are rolling out while the same pharmaceutical companies raise drug prices and while Americans struggle to afford their prescriptions.”
Big Pharma rigged the system
Open Secrets: “Pharmaceutical groups are spending heavily to influence public opinion and policy as rising drug prices become an increasingly mainstream political talking point. The industry claimed the top spot among lobbying spenders in 2018 — roughly $280 million — with no other industry coming close.”
STAT News: “PhRMA spent a record-breaking $27.5 million on lobbying in 2018.”
Axios: “Those totals don’t include the millions individual drug companies spent on their own lobbyists. They also don’t include the industry’s campaign contributions, which topped $17 million in the 2018 cycle.”
Americans demand reform
Harvard/Politico: 8 in 10 Americans want Congress to act and lower prescription drug prices.
Kaiser Family Foundation: “72 percent of people think the drug industry has too much influence in Washington — outweighing the 69 percent who feel that way about Wall Street or the 52 percent who think the NRA has too much power.”
GS Strategies: There is overwhelming bipartisan support for the CREATES Act. More than 83 percent of voters support passage of the CREATES Act and almost 6 in 10 strongly support it.
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Ready your chicken wings, chili bowls, and Tony Romo prediction bets.
But first, it’s the week in review in prescription drug pricing!
1. Storms are a-brewing
What’s colder? This wind chill or Pharma’s ice-cold refusal to testify before the Senate Finance Committee? — (The Hill)
2. Middlemen called out
The Trump administration took a step in the right direction by increasing transparency and ending rebates to drug middlemen in government programs. The hope is savings would reach patients instead. — (The Washington Post)
3. Touchdown!!! ??
The Super Bowl may be the most-watched event this week, but we’re also excited about a Congressional kickoff — a probe into insulin costs — (FiercePharma)
4. Strong armed no more?
There’s been a surprise twist in a three-year drug pricing standoff between the UK and Vertex — the maker of groundbreaking-but-pricey cystic fibrosis therapies. A British politician is pushing parliament to issue a license that would allow a generic drug maker to make copies of a Vertex medicine. — (STAT)
5. California Love
The governor of the country’s most populous state signed an executive order directing the state’s massive Medicaid program to negotiate prescription drug prices for 13 million recipients. — (Reuters)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — After today’s Senate Finance Committee and House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearings on skyrocketing prescription drug prices, David Mitchell, a cancer patient and the founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now, issued the following statement:
“Today’s hearings are an encouraging start. It’s clear that there is bipartisan support to rein in Big Pharma’s monopoly pricing power.
“We are not surprised that drug corporations refused the Senate Committee’s invitation to participate. Those drug company CEOs can’t defend the indefensible.
“We look forward to helping Congress stand up to the drug industry and begin to actually lower drug prices for patients. Unchecked, drug company executives will continue to hold patients hostage to increase their profits. Congress needs to let them know that these abuses won’t stand any longer.”
The government’s failure to negotiate on drug prices hurts patients and taxpayers. According to a recent study in JAMA, Medicare Part D could have saved $14.4 billion in 2016 alone by negotiating as the Department of Veterans Affairs does.
A recent Harvard/Politico poll showed that 80 percent of American people say that Congress’ top priority should be action to lower drug prices.
PATIENT PERSPECTIVE:
Joan Tramontano, 77, of Venice, Florida spent a career in public relations, saving all she could for retirement. After doctors diagnosed her with GIST, or gastrointestinal stromal tumor, she was prescribed Gleevec in 2009, a Novartis drug that rose in price from $26,000 in 2001 to $140,000 in 2017, an increase of nearly 440 percent.
“My out-of-pocket for that drug with Medicare Part D insurance has come, so far, to $60,000, cutting deeply into my retirement money, which is incredibly devastating and scary. I’m so glad to see Congress, with investigations and hearings, focusing this week on Novartis and a drug that has caused so much financial devastation and worry to me. Patients like me need Congress to act to lower drug prices soon. We hope the future will bring legislation to finally negotiate drug prices, crack down on excessive price hikes, bring more transparency to our system, and protect patients from unfair price gouging.”
