WASHINGTON, D.C. — The following statement was issued by David Mitchell, a cancer patient and the founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now:
“The swearing in of the two Georgia Democratic senators creates the best political environment in years for serious reforms to address high drug prices in America. Democrats and Republicans across the country campaigned on promises to bring relief to the American people; Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock will provide the margin to deliver on those promises. Under Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the Senate has the opportunity to advance bipartisan, comprehensive drug pricing legislation, such as that passed by the House in the 116th Congress and likely to be passed by the House early in this session. President Biden has stated clearly his strong support for reforms to lower drug prices, including direct Medicare price negotiations with the drug corporations.
“Americans are suffering as we pay almost four times what other wealthy nations pay for prescription drugs. That must end. Patients For Affordable Drugs Now looks forward to working with the administration and members of Congress from both parties who are ready to lift the burden of high drug prices from the backs of the American people in the months ahead.”
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Welcome to the Week in Review.
- Price Hikes Price Out Patients
- A new Patients For Affordable Drugs analysis found that pharma hiked the prices of more than 600 drugs in the first week of January, with a median price hike of 4.99 percent — that’s over four times the rate of inflation. It’s no wonder Americans, overwhelmed by high prices, are unified in calling on lawmakers to take action and lower drug prices. — (Axios)
2. Let. Medicare. Negotiate. Now.
- According to a government study, the Department of Veterans Affairs paid, on average, less than half as much as Medicare Part D for the same drugs in 2017. The difference is attributed in part to the VA’s ability to negotiate with drug companies for lower prices. It’s why Big Pharma so fiercely opposes Medicare negotiation — and why it’s time for Congress to get it done. — (U.S. Government Accountability Office)
3. “Anything But a Free Market”
- A new bipartisan report from the Senate Finance Committee reveals that insulin prices have skyrocketed over the past decade due to abusive practices throughout the prescription drug pipeline. The massive price increases have led to huge benefits for drug makers and pharmacy benefit managers alike, while patients suffer. In Senator Chuck Grassley’s words, “there is clearly something broken” about the system. — (The Hill)
4. You’re Welcome, Pharma
- In the sixth installment in P4AD’s series on taxpayer investment into COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, founder David Mitchell says pharma should be thanking U.S. taxpayers for funding and de-risking the early research that led to the successful vaccines. Now that pharma’s stock value is soaring, executives are cashing out, and companies stand to reap billions in sales, there’s only one thing left to say: “You’re welcome.” — (P4AD)
5. We’re Powered By Patients
- In the newest episode of the Uninvisible Pod, P4AD Digital Director Samantha Reid shares how her Crohn’s disease diagnosis gives her an intensely personal reason to advocate for lower drug prices. Samantha has also testified in front of Congress on the need to rein in pharmaceutical price gouging and writes a blog about living with chronic illness. We are so grateful for her work every day! — (Uninvisible Pod)
Welcome to the Week in Review. We hope everyone is safe and hanging in there this week.
- Our Origin Story
- In a new episode of the Uninvisible Pod with host Lauren Freedman, P4AD founder David Mitchell discusses his life as a multiple myeloma patient — and how his diagnosis and the high prices of his prescription drugs drove him to fight for change to our broken drug pricing system. — (Uninvisible Pod)
2. New Year, Same Price Hikes
- On Jan. 1, 70 pharmaceutical companies raised the prices of hundreds of prescription drugs, as Americans endured sickness and hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This comes after drug companies hiked the prices of more than 1,000 drugs in 2020. Americans overwhelmingly agree that it is long past time to end Big Pharma’s stranglehold on America’s drug pricing system. The incoming Biden administration and Congress must listen to the people and act. — (Reuters)
3. Stand Up for Seniors
- Seniors on Medicare pay for their prescription drugs based on list prices set by Big Pharma. With ever-increasing prices and no out-of-pocket cap in Medicare Part D, all too often those prices are simply too high. Many seniors are forced to patch together assistance programs and grants or face not being able to take their medications as prescribed. Republicans and Democrats in Congress agree the drug pricing system needs reform — patients need leaders to deliver real change. — (Kaiser Health News)
4. Blockbuster Pharma Ad Spends
- America’s COVID-19 death toll exceeded 318,000 by the end of 2020, but tone-deaf Big Pharma rounded out last year by breaking its 2020 monthly ad spending record. In December alone, 10 top Big Pharma brands flooded the airwaves with $217 million in drug ads for expensive medications, including AbbVie’s Humira, Merck’s Keytruda, and Pfizer’s Xeljanz. Big Pharma wants us to think price hikes are necessary to fuel innovation; in reality, price hikes help fuel big marketing campaigns to increase sales. — (FiercePharma)
5. Keep Up the Momentum
- Insulin copay cap laws across seven states came into effect this year, including $100 monthly caps in Washington and Illinois and a $50 monthly cap in Virginia. We applaud these states for taking a step to provide relief to people living with diabetes. — (The Seattle Times, WGN9, Prince William Times)
2020, what a year it has been. We welcome 2021 and wish health, hope, and happiness to you all.
1. Candidates’ Campaign Promises
- During the 2020 election cycle, patients called on candidates to lay out their plans for taking on Big Pharma and fighting to lower prescription drug prices. In November, voters across the country elected candidates on both sides of the aisle who promised to stand with patients. Now, as the 117th Congress prepares to be sworn in and President-elect Biden readies his administration to take office, patient advocates will be holding them accountable to make sure they deliver on their campaign promises.
2. Taxpayer-Funded Light At The End Of The Tunnel
- It has been an unprecedented pandemic, but in many ways, we saw the same old Big Pharma tactics to line executives’ pockets and rake in the cash. As the COVID-19 pandemic grew, the U.S. government and other nations around the world pumped billions into research and development for treatments and vaccines. Now pharmaceutical companies are predicting billions in revenue thanks to treatments and vaccines funded by taxpayers, and company executives have been cashing in, selling hundreds of millions of dollars in stock. At P4ADNow, we’re grateful for the vaccines that are rolling out — we all desperately need them. But when it comes to vaccine development, pharma should be thanking taxpayers for picking up the tab.
3. Big Pharma’s Lies Spectacularly Revealed
- A bombshell pair of hearings in the House Oversight Committee bore the fruits of an 18-month investigation into drug industry pricing practices launched by the late Chairman Elijah Cummings. The investigationdebunked pharma’s talking points that drug prices must be kept high to allow for important innovation. Internal documents from five big drug companies, Celgene, Teva, Amgen, Novartis, and Mallinckrodt, revealed a culture of greed that linked price hikes directly to increased company revenue and executive bonuses. Company executives were forced to face the impact of their price gouging when four patients shared their drug pricing stories at the hearings. The investigation is continuing into 2021; Chairwoman Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney announced her intent to subpoena industry behemoth AbbVie next.
4. Business As Usual
- The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t make the issue of high drug prices go away — it made it worse. The pandemic has caused millions of Americans to lose their jobs, and with it their incomes and access to health insurance. This year could have been an opportunity for Big Pharma to exercise restraint when it came to drug prices; instead, it was price hikes as usual for the industry. Since the beginning of the year, drug corporations have hiked the prices of more than 1,000 drugs. Those drugs include medications being used to treat COVID-19 symptoms, tested to fight the virus itself, and prescribed to treat diseases that put people at risk of complications from the virus. It brings a whole new meaning to “cashing in on a crisis.”
5. Patients Speak, Work Toward Change
We are looking ahead with hope for 2021: For speedy access to a COVID-19 vaccine for every American — and for lower drug prices. Welcome to the Week In Review.
1. Disputing a Double Charge
- Drug corporations have historically been unwilling to invest money in risky research on vaccines, so when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, governments around the world stepped up to finance the research and development of COVID-19 vaccines. Now Big Pharma is cashing in with vaccine prices that will yield huge profits. — (BBC)
2. We’re Saving Ourselves
- Pharma is using the COVID-19 vaccine successes to try to rehabilitate its image — hoping the much-needed success will erase years of abuse of patients and consumers. But the vaccines are actually built on years of research by government and university scientists. Having received public support every step of the way, drug corporations shouldn’t be allowed to set prices and claim patent rights that put private profits ahead of public health. — (The New York Times)
3. Bipartisan Calls For Action
- Two longtime members of Congress reasserted their commitments to fight for affordable prescription drugs. Rep. Doggett (D-TX) published an op-ed this week calling for Congress and the incoming administration to take action to ensure that access to the COVID-19 vaccines is not impeded by high prices and patent rights. Senator Grassley (R-IA) expressed his hope to work with President-elect Biden to advance bipartisan legislation to bring relief to millions of Americans suffering from high drug prices. We couldn’t agree more — if Democrats and Republicans can work together, 2021 could be a big year for drug pricing reform. — (USA Today, The Gazette)
4. What a Coincidence
- The arthritis drug baricitinib was granted an emergency use authorization by the FDA as a part of a COVID-19 treatment regimen with Gilead’s remdesivir. But some doctors are concerned that the drug — at a price of about $1,500 per patient — is too expensive to reasonably prescribe. Earlier this year, Eli Lilly increased the price of its brand-name version of baricitinib, Olumiant, just five days before the Lancet published an articlesuggesting its use for COVID-19. Frankly, none of the companies are showing pricing restraint in light of the pandemic. They are just maximizing profits as usual. — (The New York Times)
5. More Patient Assistance Ploys
- Pharmaceutical corporation Biogen will pay $22 million to settle a case with the U.S. Justice Department that charged the company with paying kickbacks disguised as charity to the Medicare program. Biogen is just the latest company to fall under scrutiny for the practice — Regeneron and Teva both faced cases for the same kind of violation earlier this year. Instead of violating federal law, drug companies could make their drugs accessible by… lowering their prices — (Reuters)
We hope drug prices are lowered… for evermore.
Welcome to the Week In Review.
1. Business as Usual
- For nearly a year now, Americans have been dealing with the unyielding spread of COVID-19, with many losing jobs, savings, and health insurance in the process. And yet, pharma has continued to raise prices on over 1,000 critical medications in this year alone, including over 200 price hikes since July. The new administration and Congress must lower drug prices and hold pharma accountable for their exploitative behavior. — (P4AD)
2. A Half Billion To Keep Power
- Last year, the lobby group PhRMA spent over $500 million to maintain the rigged drug pricing system that benefits drug corporations while patients suffer. We don’t have $500 million to counter that spending, but we have something more powerful — the stories of thousands of Americans demanding change and relief from the high drug prices PhRMA members set. — (Center for Responsive Politics)
3. A Vacation Package… to the Pharmacy
- Another byproduct of skyrocketing drug prices: Self-insured companies are finding it is cheaper to fly their employees who take expensive medications to Mexico to purchase their prescriptions, instead of paying for the medications via their health care plans. Do we need any more evidence that our rigged drug pricing system is failing Americans? — (NBC San Diego)
4. We’re Disadvantaging Ourselves
- A new study from the Commonwealth Fund found that 50 percent of lower-income U.S. adults have been unable to access prescription drugs or medical care in the past year due to high costs — that’s compared to 24 percent or less in other wealthy countries. One of the differences between the U.S. and those countries? We don’t allow our government to negotiate with drug companies for lower prices. The evidence is clear — Medicare must be allowed to negotiate. — (Axios)
5. Flooding Our Airwaves
- In November, pharmaceutical corporations beat their record for monthly spending on TV drug advertising, spending a whopping $204 million to promote blockbuster drugs. Big Pharma wants us to believe they cannot lower drug prices, but the truth is clear — drug pricing is all about their bottomline. — (FiercePharma)
By Tomi Fadeyi-Jones, Chuck Hurley, Gloria Johnson-Cusack, Cal LaRoche, David Mitchell, Nicole Solomon-Mitchell
As Democrats and Republicans consider how to deliver on their promises to lower drug prices made during the 2020 election, there’s an important imperative for reform that has gone underreported: High drug prices contribute to poor health outcomes and disproportionately harm Black and Brown Americans — perpetuating systemic racism in health care.
Racial disparities in health care are well-documented, as Black Americans are more likely to suffer from chronic pain, diabetes, high blood pressure, and COVID-19 due to economic, political, and social conditions. They are almost twice as likely to be uninsured and have lower incomes, putting a source of regular care and medical treatments out of reach for too many. As a result, the life expectancy of a Black man in America is almost five years less than that of a white man.
Diseases that disproportionately affect Black Americans are often under-researched by drug corporations. Sickle cell disease is a clear example. It was discovered more than 100 years ago and its cause has been understood for about 50 years, but investment and innovation have lagged far behind other drugs that treat smaller populations.
Most recently, the coronavirus pandemic has brought into painful and stark view the impact of continued systemic racism in U.S. health care. Not only are Black and Brown Americans more likely to contract the virus, they are more likely to die as a result. Yet drug corporations are actively raising prices on drugs, such as anticoagulants and cardiovascular medications, that can help treat underlying conditions that may contribute to increased mortality.
The barriers to and rationing of treatment resulting from high prescription drug prices are an integral part of how systemic racism plays out in health care. By consistently putting profit maximization ahead of public health, drug companies inflict the greatest pain on those who are most vulnerable — Black Americans and other people of color. While 25 percent of white Americans report not taking prescription medications as prescribed due to cost, the number rises to 30 percent among Black Americans and 42 percent among Hispanics.
Drug corporations tout so-called patient assistance programs as a solution for people who cannot afford their drugs. But 97 percent of these programs exclude people who don’t have insurance. Why? Because these programs are really about selling more drugs at high prices; drug companies want to spend patient assistance money to cover patient copayments in order to leverage the much higher total insurance payment for a drug. Since Black Americans are almost twice as likely to be uninsured, these programs are frequently of no help to them. Those without insurance are often condemned to pay the high list prices set by drug corporations — not the discounted prices that insurers negotiate for their customers.
Yet, there is a more insidious and far-reaching impact of our drug pricing system in perpetrating systemic racism: We permit drug corporations to dictate whatever price they choose, and as a result, they extract an unearned and disproportionate share of the nation’s resources. For every dollar of taxpayer money we send to drug corporations in unwarranted profits through Medicare and other public programs, that is a dollar we don’t have to provide insurance coverage, improve nutrition, clean up water, increase funding for education, and generally support the steps that can lead to a healthier and higher quality of life for communities of color.
The bottom line with prescription drug pricing in America is that brand drug corporations insist on unfettered power to set prices as high as they choose, and diverse communities are disproportionately hurt by their practices.
We can fix our drug pricing system to make Black and Brown lives healthier and longer. To do that, there must be access to affordable prescription drugs — and that starts with lower list prices. Legislation that advanced in the U.S. House and Senate last year — most notably H.R. 3 — would move us in the right direction. It would lower drug prices in both public and private sector plans and reconfigure Medicare benefits to reduce out-of-pocket costs.
Black Americans are consistently underrepresented in clinical trials for diseases ranging from diabetes to heart disease to cancers, despite being disproportionately affected by many of them. H.R. 3 included more money for the National Institutes of Health; we believe a greater share of that funding should be earmarked for conditions that disproportionately affect people of color and to fund clinical trials that include representation of all Americans.
At the state level, the NAACP has endorsed the creation of drug affordability boards “to determine how best to make prescription drugs more affordable for residents,” and we are working in support of legislation to establish boards in several states.
The late Congressman Elijah Cummings summed it up clearly a few years back and made this link to high drug prices: “These factors place African Americans in a double bind — we are more likely to suffer from an expensive chronic disease and we earn less money with which to pay for our health care, including skyrocketing prescription drug prices.”
Black lives matter. We remain committed to and will continue the fight for reform, and a new healthcare system that prioritizes public health — especially the health of Black Americans and all people of color — over unjustified profits for multinational drug corporations.
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The authors are members of the Boards of Directors of Patients For Affordable Drugs and Patients For Affordable Drugs Now.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The following statement was issued today by David Mitchell, a cancer patient and the founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now, on the nomination of California Attorney General Xavier Becerra for U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services:
“President-elect Biden’s choice of Xavier Becerra for Secretary of HHS is good news for patients and the fight for lower drug prices. We have seen his effectiveness firsthand while working with his office to enact the groundbreaking law AB 824 in California, which curbs anti-competitive pay-for-delay deals that block cheaper generic competition. He has led fights to stop drug company price gouging and to lower prices through greater transparency and regulation of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). During his time as attorney general and in the U.S. Congress, Becerra has demonstrated his understanding of America’s rigged drug pricing system and his commitment to achieving reforms to fix it. We support his nomination and look forward to working together in the interests of patients and all Americans.”
BACKGROUND:
- As attorney general of California, Xavier Becerra sponsored and passed into law AB 824, which bans collusive pay-for-delay deals and promotes generic drug competition.
- Becerra has successfully defended the legislation in court, warding off multiple industry legal challenges.
- Becerra worked with Patients For Affordable Drugs Now to elevatepatient stories in support of the first-in-the-nation legislation.
- Becerra has led multiple coalitions of state attorneys general calling for the regulation of pharmacy benefit managers to increase transparency and improve drug affordability.
- In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Becerra urged the federal government to make Gilead’s COVID-19 drug remdesivir more affordable because it was developed using taxpayer funding.
- During his 24 years in the House prior to serving as attorney general, Becerra co-sponsored multiple bills that would allow Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices.
- As chair of the House Democratic Caucus, Becerra formed a task force “to examine the rising cost of prescription drugs” in 2016.
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