Welcome to the week in review in prescription drug pricing.
1. LOL Pfizer
Pfizer spun its January price hikes as impacting an itsy bitsy portion of its drugs. Too bad the 41 drugs it hiked represent half the pharma giant’s revenue. — (Axios)
The Republican-controlled Senate and Democratic-controlled House are kicking off 2019 by lighting up out-of-control drug pricing with Senate Finance and House Oversight committee hearings Tuesday.— (The Hill)
4. It’s a thing. A 2020 thing. Potential presidential candidates are staking claims in the drug pricing debate. Smart move,
since 80 percent of the public wants our elected leaders to lower drug prices. — (KHN)
5. Highly Illogical
The drug lobby’s arguments against holding down prices in Medicare Part B just don’t add up. — (STAT)
Welcome to the Week in Review in Prescription Drug Pricing!
1. Laboratories for lower drug prices
States aren’t waiting around for the federal government to act on drug prices. Maryland wants a board to hold Big Pharma accountable. — (The Baltimore Sun)
2. Close the Big Pharma Tax Loophole
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) introduced legislation to prohibit pharmaceutical corporations from claiming tax deductions for direct-to-consumer advertising expenses. Big Pharma spent $6 billion on direct-to-consumer ads in 2016 alone. — (STAT News)
3. Azar on the move
HHS chief Alex Azar is on the move on Capitol Hill, stumping for lower drug prices, especially in Medicare Part B. — (The Washington Post)
4. Pfizer Pflops
Pfizer hiked the prices on 41 prescription drugs this week, in blatant disregard for the financial health and wellbeing of all Americans. It’s not OK. — (P4AD)
5. ✈️✈️✈️
Are the executives at Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Novartis doing a lot of “innovating” on their private airplanes? — (Twitter)
It’s a new year and drug pricing reform is here to stay. Here are our top 5 takeaways from 2018:
1. Patient Voices Grew Louder — Drugs Don’t Work If People Can’t Afford Them.
Patients delivered this bipartisan message to their elected officials, to the media, and with their votes. They wrote letters, signed petitions, and testified on Capitol Hill and at statehouses, determined to lower drug prices. Patients like Pam Holt, a retired schoolteacher thrown into debt to afford her prescription for multiple myeloma, are fueling a growing movement to lower the prices of prescription drugs.
“Sick people should not have to increase the profits of these huge drug corporations,” Holt told CBS This Morning. “At some point, there needs to be understanding that people should be able to have the drugs that they need to survive.”
2. Patient Influence Expanded in Washington, DC
Patients helped block a terrible $4 billion Big Pharma bailout, killing a deceptive, months-long pharmaceutical industry lobbying campaign aimed at federal lawmakers. Congress passed legislation banning gag clauses, improving transparency, and helping patients get the best price for their prescriptions at the pharmacy counter. And, after patients took action to stop pay-for-delay deals that stall cheaper biosimilars from coming to market, Sens. Klobuchar and Grassley heard the outrage and proposed bipartisan legislation to address the issue.
3. States Took A Stand
States like Maryland have become trendsetters for federal reform. And where states don’t at first succeed — it’s try, try again. Maryland reforms that went into effect Oct. 1, 2018 influenced federal legislation. Maryland patient advocates are continuing their work to establish a board to negotiate drug prices on behalf of patients and taxpayers.
Patient Advocates in 2018 spoke in favor of drug pricing legislation in states like Connecticut and Oregon where transparency legislation passed, requiring Big Pharma to submit price reports on planned prescription drug price hikes. In 2018, reporters sought and received records on planned price hikes made public by California’s first-in-the-nation drug pricing transparency law, opening secretive, routine drug price hikes to fierce public scrutiny. (BTW, make sure to check out our new legislative map, which features state drug pricing legislation proposed in 2018.)
4. From the Kitchen Table to the Ballot Box
Runaway prescription drugs prices know no party. It’s a kitchen table issue, and voters stood ready to act in 2018. In Massachusetts, voters powered Gov. Charlie Baker to victory after he listened to patients and promised action to lower drug prices. Voters ousted industry apologists like incumbent Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, who took industry cash and told seniors to “shop around” for lower drug prices. Similarly, Big Pharma CEO Bob Hugin drove cancer patients into debt and then lost his bid for a New Jersey U.S. Senate seat.
5. The Blinding Glare of Patient Scrutiny
A Midterm campaign run by Patients For Affordable Drugs Action proved Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, has long done pharma’s bidding, leaving patients who rely on expensive life-saving drugs exposed to higher drug prices, longer. Eshoo — who is the likely chair of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health — knows patients are watching.
Happy 2019. Cheers to a fruitful year of drug pricing reform!
— The Team at Patients For Affordable Drugs Now.
‘Tis the season — for drug corporations to spend tax windfalls buying back billions in stock while refusing to lower drug prices.
Welcome to the Week in Review in Prescription Drug Pricing!
1. AstroTurf: Activate!
Big Pharma is whipping its hundreds of pharma front groups into a fury to try to stop a good idea from *even becoming a federal proposal.* Why? Because the Medicare Part B International Pricing Index demo project would actually lower drug prices. — (AJMC)
2. CEO carolers: “All I want for Christmas are my company’s own shares”
Big Pharma CEOs could use their massive tax windfalls to lower drug prices. They are buying back billions of dollars in shares instead to enrich themselves at the expense of patients. — (Axios)
3. Now streaming
You need a weekend drug pricing documentary in your life. So watch the new film, “DRUG$: The Price We Pay.” — (KALW & L.A. Times)
4. In honor of Alec Smith
Minneapolis resident Alec Smith died in 2017 after rationing insulin he could not afford. Lawmakers in Minnesota, where nearly a half million people live with diabetes, are ready to fight for a bill that would push back on insulin price gouging. Legislation named for Alec failed to pass last session. — (Star Tribune)
5. THAWED: That laughable Pfizer price hike freeze
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D.-Wis, demanded transparency from Pfizer and accused the pharma giant of playing political games in her latest letter to CEO Ian Read. The drug corporation is expected to raise prices on 41 drugs in January following empty promises of a price hike freeze. — (FiercePharma)
1. More $$$ for Big Pharma? Thank u, next.
Drug companies are asking Congress to reduce their contributions to the Medicare Part D program. A new study finds that under the PhRMA proposal, beneficiaries could spend an additional $1.3 billion and patients would see increased premiums and higher out-of-pocket costs. — (PEW)
2. Straight to the naughty list.
The drug maker Actelion Pharmaceuticals agreed to pay a $360 million settlement stemming from an investigation into illegally funneled kickbacks through a patient-assistance charity. — (NYTimes)
3. You get a patent! You get a patent! Everyone gets a patent!
Drug giant Amgen has filed a grand total of 57 patents for its arthritis drug Enbrel, extending the drug’s market exclusivity through 2029. — (Axios)
4. Lower prices or stock buybacks?
Multiple members of Congress criticize drug manufacturers for using savings from the tax overhaul to buy back shares rather than lowering prices for patients. — (WSJ)
5. What do a Democratic senator and a Republican senator have in common? Drug pricing reform.
Senator Chuck Grassley and Senator Ron Wyden introduce a bipartisan drug pricing bill tackling manufacturers using tactics to overcharge taxpayers for Medicaid rebates. — (The Hill)
More women are headed to Washington. Women are disproportionately impacted by high drug prices, so increased representation is a good thing!
1. Patients won. Drug prices won.
Healthcare — and prescription drug prices in particular — moved voters to the polls. — (The Washington Post)
2. What’s Next? Getting Results.
Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, and Nancy Pelosi all mentioned drug prices as an area of focus for the 116th Congress. — (STAT)
3. Big Pharma Campaign Cash –– Rejected
“This year, 72 percent of Red to Blue candidates — from all ideological factions — have made the same commitment [to reject corporate PAC money].” — (CQ Roll Call)
4. Respect your elders, PhRMA
The drug lobby wants seniors to pay more so drug companies can juice their record profits. Good luck explaining that one to Grandma at Thanksgiving. — (Bloomberg)
5. Duck Tales
Want to know our lame duck focus? Read about it here. — (STAT)
“Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?” –– How Americans feel when reacting to the price of prescription drugs.
1. We have been saying this all along
Drug pricing is important. Voters care. — (Forbes)
2. MEMO: Investigate the insulin cartel
Physicians asked the FTC to investigate insulin price hikes. Three companies hold a oligopoly over insulin, which has tripled in price. — (The Hill)
There are more pharmaceutical lobbyists than lawmakers on Capitol Hill. This year, lobbyists are on track to break their own spending record, with more than $21 million spent. –– (NYT)
4. States take matters into own hands
Instead of waiting for Big Brother to get the job done, state lawmakers have taken matters into their own hands –– turning drug prices into a signature local campaign issue. — (STAT)
5. Worse for women
Women use therapeutic drugs at a higher rate than men and are more likely to be single parents, so they’re most impacted by the high costs of prescription drugs. — (Ms. Magazine)
Straight to pumpkin carving after this.
Welcome to the week in review in prescription drug pricing.
1. Par-tAy around Part B reforms
The Trump administration took aim at lowering the cost of the most expensive drugs in Medicare Part B. Drug makers pushed back, but we’ve heard their tired arguments before. Let’s do this. — (AP)
2. Pharma’s worst nightmare
The drug lobby contemplates a strange future in which the left aligns with Trump to bring down drug prices. — (NYT)
3. Pharma’s sworn enemy?
Claire McCaskill has made prescription drug affordability central to her campaign as she fights for re-election. — (STAT)
4. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again
Only pharmaceutical companies set drug prices. Middlemen must be more transparent, but Pharma’s ploy to blame them is played out. — (Forbes)
5. Precision medicine raises tough questions
“Modern medicine gives us many gifts. But for many of us, those gifts are out of reach.” — (MIT Technology Review)
