A new Patients For Affordable Drugs Action ad features Floridian Clayton “DJ” Martin, who shares his worries about high drug prices and urges voters to support candidates who will take action to lower prices. The ad is part of a 15-state campaign to elevate the issue of drug prices across the country. We are grateful to DJ and all patient advocates for their tireless work to stand up to Big Pharma. — (Florida Politics)
2. Called to the Stand
Six pharma executives representing some of the biggest names in the drug industry are testifying in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform next week. The committee’s probe on unethical and anti-competitive drug pricing practices continues the important work of its late chairman, Rep. Elijah Cummings. We’ll be watching the hearings, and we look forward to getting some long-awaited answers. — (FiercePharma)
3. Dubious Discount
President Trump announced Thursday that he will send $200 discount cards to 33 million Medicare beneficiaries. Had he kept his commitment to lower drug prices, he wouldn’t need to promise some Medicare beneficiaries a dubious discount card days before an election. Americans need systemic, enduring drug pricing reforms, not election-year gimmicks. — (STAT)
4. The System is Rigged
The entire drug pricing system is broken, from drug companies that set ever-increasing list prices to pharmacy benefit managers that keep rotating formularies. And who’s paying the price? Patients, who often face uncertainty and exorbitant drug costs at the pharmacy counter. It’s long past time for change. — (The New York Times)
5. Her Story, Her Voice, and Her Vote
Patient advocate Ramae Hamrin, a Minnesota resident who has multiple myeloma, is sharing her story to push for drug pricing reforms that will benefit us all. “Even if you are not in my shoes at the moment, you or someone you love could also be one step away from losing everything in order to simply stay alive. I’m more than happy to bring a face to the unfairness and high cost of prescription drugs for all of us in hopes that something can be done. It has to be.” — (Incurable Blessings)
WASHINGTON, DC – The following statement was issued by David Mitchell, a cancer patient and the founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now, on President Trump’s announcement that he will send $200 discount cards to 33 million Medicare beneficiaries:
“If the president had kept his commitment to lower prescription drug prices, he wouldn’t need to promise some Medicare beneficiaries a dubious discount card days before an election.
“It is not at all clear if this is legal or how the president will pay for his scheme. It is perfectly clear, however, that this will not lower prescription drug prices for 328 million Americans.
“Americans need systemic, enduring reforms to our rigged drug pricing system, not election year gimmicks.”
BACKGROUND
Today President Trump promised to send $200 checks to cover prescription drug expenses for 33 million Medicare beneficiaries.
The Trump administration announced the checks would be paid for by the president’s most-favored nation proposal, which has yet to beenacted — nor has a plan been released for its enactment.
Drug prices continue to rise, with more than 500 drugs seeing a price increase in the first week of January. In the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, drug companies raised the prices of nearly 250 additional drugs.
Patients are suffering — nearly one in three Americans report not taking their medication as prescribed due to price.
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TikTok may be going away. But your drug pricing newsletter is here to stay.
1. #AskAboutDrugPrices
Patients For Affordable Drugs Action, our sister organization, launched a campaign this week featuring patients calling on fellow voters to support candidates who will commit to lowering drug prices. As part of the campaign, the group will launch digital ads in 15 states, starting this week with Georgia, Iowa, Montana, Minnesota, and Virginia. Patients For Affordable Drugs Action will also focus its efforts on exposing Senator Thom Tillis‘ record of turning his back on patients in service of Big Pharma. — (Patients For Affordable Drugs Action)
2. Yes, the U.S. Government Will Pay Twice for a COVID-19 Vaccine
U.S. taxpayers are underwriting the development of a COVID-19 vaccine — to the tune of $12 billion. But the drug corporations plan to charge taxpayers yet again for the final product. P4AD Founder and President David Mitchell breaks it down from the patient perspective on PBS NewsHour. Our rigged drug pricing system is long overdue for major reforms. — (PBS NewsHour)
3. Drug Prices: Not Falling
On Sunday, President Trump signed the most-favored nations executive order that ties Medicare drug prices to lower prices in other countries. However, many questions about the details of the executive order remain unanswered, and it’s unlikely that Americans will see lower drug prices anytime soon. Advancing the order was a step in the right direction, but we’ll be waiting to see if any meaningful action comes next. — (NPR)
4. Profit Maximizers Don’t Wear Capes
American tax dollars filled global pharma giant AstraZeneca’s coffers with $1.2 billion for the development of a COVID-19 vaccine, but the company has CONTINUED TO RAISE DRUG PRICES this year — sometimes even twice on the same medication. — (Los Angeles Times)
5. ?Drug Corporations Cashing in on Crisis
Drug companies are peddling unsubstantiated “news” about progress in the race for a COVID-19 vaccine, which leads to inflated stock value. Then, pharma executives and shareholders are selling their stock shares and making millions. Pharma’s relentless bad behavior underscores that Congress must act to protect us from pandemic profiteering. — (Newsweek)
1. Even More Pandemic Price Hikes
Amid the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, drug companies have hiked the prices of 645 brand-name drugs this year, including those used to treat chest pain and depression. Time and again, pharma companies display limitless greed. — (AnalySource)
2. Leave No One Behind
It’s been five years since “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli increased the price of the medication Daraprim by over 5,000 percent to $750 per pill — and the drug still costs that much. Widespread outrage has not stopped drug corporations’ unchecked powers to increase prescription drug prices. We must reform the system to serve all patients — and that means lowering drug prices for all conditions. — (Roll Call)
3. System of Patent Abuse
In a new podcast, host Angela Glover Blackwell and Priti Krishtel, the co-founder of the drug patent watchdog organization I-MAK, discuss how Big Pharma’s patent abuses disproportionately harm people of color. The fight for health equity must include tackling drug companies’ monopoly pricing power. — (Radical Imagination)
1. We’re Drug Pricing Voters
More than one-third of Americans cite lowering drug costs as a top issue influencing their 2020 vote. The numbers don’t lie: This November, Americans are looking for candidates who will stand up to Big Pharma and pass legislation to curb predatory drug pricing practices. — (Gallup)
2. Paying Twice
A new analysis found American tax dollars helped to fund every new drug approved in the past decade. We’re paying billions of dollars to produce life-saving medications, only to be overcharged while pharma juices profits. Our rigged drug pricing system has to change. — (Institute for New Economic Thinking)
3. Profiteering Poster Child
Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney plans to subpoena pharma giant AbbVie after the company failed to provide the House Committee on Oversight and Reform with requested information on blockbuster drugs Imbruvica and Humira. AbbVie has raised the price of Humira 18 times between 2009 and 2019. We’re glad to see the committee continue the investigation, which started in January 2019 under the leadership of the late then-Chairman Elijah Cummings. — (FiercePharma)
4. Made in Cali
This week, the California state legislature passed a bill that opens the door for the state to become the first to produce its own line of generic drugs. The measure would require the state’s health agency to partner with drug companies to manufacture or distribute generics, helping to drive down the cost of expensive prescriptions. — (Kaiser Health News)
5. “PhRMA lacks standing”
“PhRMA lacks standing,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said this week in response to a federal lawsuit brought by PhRMA that challenged the constitutionality of the Alec Smith Emergency Insulin Act.The legislation, named for a young man with type 1 diabetes who died after he rationed insulin, would provide an emergency supply of the drug to the numerous patients who struggle to afford the critical medication. — (MinnPost)
1. The Case of the Missing Executive Order
President Trump’s self-imposed deadline to advance a yet unseen most-favored nation executive order passed midnight Tuesday, with lots of talk, no real news. Pharma, meanwhile, reportedly floated a flimsy counteroffer, which the president must reject. Trump should advance the most-favored nation proposal to help stop Americans from paying the highest drug prices in the world. While this approach is short of a solution to the drug pricing crisis writ large — most Americans won’t experience savings if it’s implemented — it’s a step in the right direction. — (KHN)
2. There has been no “dramatic action” on drug pricing
No, drug prices are not falling. No, dramatic action has not been taken. Drug prices are rising during a global pandemic. — (NBC)
3. Profiteering on a Pandemic
Oxford University once pledged to donate the rights to its promising COVID-19 vaccine contender. Instead, the university signed an exclusive deal granting AstraZeneca sole rights to sell the vaccine, in a contract that would also allow the university to receive millions in royalties. In the midst of an unprecedented health crisis, we all remain at the mercy of drug corporations’ unfettered pricing power. — (KHN)
4. Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing
Pharma wants the COVID-19 pandemic to revive its bottomed-out image, but companies like Pfizer are already signaling to investors that prices will rise in the likely scenario that COVID-19 vaccinations become a seasonal event. It’s business as usual for Big Pharma. — (Bloomberg)
5. Crackdown Continues
The U.S. Justice Department dropped conspiracy charges on Teva Pharmaceuticals following an investigation into price fixing for drugs to treat conditions like heart disease. It’s the seventh drug maker charged in the department’s ongoing criminal antitrust probe. — (Reuters)
WASHINGTON, DC – The drug lobby knows no shame. In the past 72 hours, drug corporations offered a flimsy plan. It’s not designed to lower drug prices for all Americans, but to stop the Trump administration from implementing its most-favored nation proposal. In response, Ben Wakana, the executive director of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now, issued the following statement:
“Big Pharma’s political stunt is exactly the kind of sorry excuse for a solution you would expect from drug corporations. It’s a PR move designed to block a better plan that would meaningfully lower drug prices. Patients have been promised real reforms to get Americans the best deal of any nation in the world and to lower drug prices by 50 percent. Instead, the drug lobby presented a plan that is voluntary, severely limited in scope, and impermanent.
“Patients resoundingly reject Big Pharma’s offer as an alternative to the most-favored nation plan. It’s too little, too late.”
BACKGROUND
According to press reports, drug corporations would not be required to participate in the “two voluntary demonstration programs within Medicare.”
The voluntary project would have two components for manufacturers that choose to participate:
Drug companies would provide the government with “market-based” discounts for drugs in Medicare Part B.
Drug companies would cap what patients would pay at 5 percent in the catastrophic phase of Medicare Part D.
The public does not trust drug corporations to price their products fairly, and nearly 1 in 3 adults report not taking their medicines as prescribed because of the cost.
“Nearly one-third of U.S. adults (30 percent) consider a candidate’s position on lowering drug costs to be ‘the single most important issue’ or ‘among the most important issues’ in influencing their vote in the 2020 election,” according to Gallup.
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WASHINGTON, DC – Today marks President Trump’s self-imposed deadline to advance an executive order for a most-favored nation approach to lower prescription drug prices. The president gave the pharmaceutical industry one month to propose a solution to meaningfully lower the list prices of drugs. Instead, drug corporations continued to raise prices and patients continued to struggle. It’s time for change.
“Abandoning the most-favored nation proposal at the 11th hour would be a capitulation to drug corporations,” said Ben Wakana, the executive director of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now. “If President Trump does not implement a proposal to lower the list prices of prescription drugs, he will leave Americans continuing to pay the highest prices in the world.”
Drug prices are not going down by “50%, 60%, maybe 70%” as the president has claimed. Instead, prescription drug prices continue to go up, even during a global pandemic. Pharma has had decades to propose its own solutions to lower drug prices, but with continued price hikes, the drug industry has proven it is unwilling to do so.
Americans overwhelmingly support proposals to lower drug prices by tying them to prices paid in other countries. By a 71-point margin, voters supported the Department of Health and Human Services’ ANPRM to lower drug prices in Medicare Part B by implementing an International Pricing Index. The most-favored nation approach is considered an outgrowth of that idea.
Comprehensive reform to lower the list price of prescription drugs for all Americans requires Congress and the president to come together to enact meaningful and sustainable policy change.
Nearly nine in 10 voters believe it is very important for Congress to lower drug prices, and almost one-third of U.S. adults consider a candidate’s position on lowering drug prices to be “the single most important issue” or “among the most important issues” that will influence their vote in 2020.
