Curb Drug Costs: Makes Sense For All

David Posnett — Thu, 23 Jan 2020 15:31:21 +0000

By Mike Anthony, on page A10 of the Southampton Press:

http://digital.olivesoftware.com/Olive/ODN/SouthamptonEast/

Makes Sense For All

Dr. David Posnett’s informative letter about House of Representative bill HR3 [“Choosing Sides,” Letters, January 9], see prior post herein, details key elements of Congress’s promise to establish a consumer- and patient-friendly drug price negotiation system. Dr. Posnett aptly captures the gist of the matter in several paragraphs.

My prime takeaway: If the Veterans Administration can negotiate drug prices, why not the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services? High-quality and lower-cost drugs makes sense for all of us.

As Dr. Posnett points out, Congressman Lee Zeldin repeats the canard that “these policies would siphon $1 trillion from biopharmaceutical innovators over the next 10 years.” A cynic might ask: Why don’t the drug companies use some of their robust advertising budget and redirect it to research?

The thing is, you don’t have to be a cynic to think that way. Dr. Marcia Angell reveals how drug companies have strayed from their mission in “The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It.” Here’s an excerpt from the publisher:

“As Dr. Angell powerfully demonstrates, claims that high drug prices are necessary to fund research and development are unfounded. The truth is that drug companies funnel the bulk of their resources into the marketing of products of dubious benefit.”

Any doubt about that? Just ask Purdue Pharma, the company that pleaded guilty to criminal charges of misbranding Oxycontin by claiming that it was less addictive compared to other opioids. Purdue was fined $634 million.

Yes, drug efficacy and safety are as important as pricing — and HR3 covers that as well.

NPR reports that several overseas generic drug manufacturers abuse safety protocols. In India, about 25 percent of inspected drug manufacturing plants violated drug integrity rules; in China, 32 percent of their plants violated these rules.

To guarantee the safe manufacture of drugs, HR 3 provides $920 million to improve regulatory oversight of medical products and to protect public health. And, most important to the East End community, HR3 provides $7.5 billion in funding for states, counties, cities and towns to fight the opioid epidemic.

Contact Congressman Zeldin and ask him to reconsider his opposition to HR3: https://zeldin.house.gov/contact/offices

Mike Anthony

Westhampton

Drug Prices: How Pharma Games the System

David Posnett — Sun, 28 Oct 2018 15:55:50 +0000

We have all seen the TV ads for Humira…

What they don’t show is the cost. For instance there are a number of different TNFalpha blockers, including Humira (adalimumab) and Embrel (etanercept). The following site lists their comparable pricing: https://www.goodrx.com/tnf-blockers

These drugs are used for autoimmune disorders like Rheumatoid Arthritis (32%), Psoriasis (30%), Ulcerative Colitis (19%), Crohn’s Disease (19%). These are chronic diseases that can not be “cured”. In stead they are rendered manageable by medication that may have to be taken life long.

Why are these drugs so expensive? Priti Krishtel explains:

A Humira Prescription Costs $38,000 A Year Because Our Patent System Is Being Abused

Priti Krishtel

Guest Writer

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Sue Lee, 76, has plaque psoriasis, an incurable, chronic skin condition that causes itchy, painful sores. To give her some relief, Lee’s doctor prescribed Humira, a patent-protected drug with no generic option. In 2012, the drug cost about $19,000 a year. Today, it costs more than $38,000 a year. Even with Medicare, Lee, who retired last year and lives in Kentucky, would have to drain the little savings she has in order to afford the drug.

Retirement should be the peaceful denouement of a lifetime of work. Instead, millions of seniors are being forced to draw down on their retirement savings or forgo necessities like food and rent to pay for arbitrarily and mercilessly high-priced prescription drugs. Some skip doses to make ends meet or, like Lee, simply suffer in silence. As the proportion of seniors to the total population grows, the problem is only going to get worse.

Not surprisingly, older Americans are hit especially hard by high drug prices. People ages 65 and older use far more prescription drugs than younger Americans; at any given time, older Americans are taking an average of 4.5 different prescriptions. Seniors are also three times more likely than those in their 20s to need costly specialty drugs, like Humira, that treat relatively uncommon conditions and have few, if any, generic alternatives. Making matters worse, over the last decade drugs widely used by older Americans have tripled in price on average, far exceeding the rate of inflation.

With 1 in 5 Americans expected to be 65 or older by 2030, the country is staring down the barrel of a massive health care and fiscal crisis.

There are a lot of reasons why drug prices in the U.S. are so high. They aren’t regulated, so pharma companies can and do set prices as high as they want. And Medicare, the largest purchaser of drugs, is forbidden from negotiating those prices down. But another important and often overlooked factor is the ongoing manipulation of our patent system.

An analysis released last month by my organization, the Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge, shows that there have been an astonishing 247 patents filed on Humira, nearly half of them in just the last four years. Richard Gonzalez, CEO of the drug’s maker, AbbVie, has said that “any company seeking to market a biosimilar version of Humira will have to contend with this extensive patent estate, which AbbVie intends to enforce vigorously.” In other words, the company has created such a morass of patents around Humira as to deter generic competition in the U.S. for years to come.

It’s a deliberate strategy designed to prolong the company’s monopoly, and AbbVie isn’t alone in using it. In a separate report released by I-MAK in August, we found there are an average of 125 patent applications filed and 71 patents granted for each of the 12 highest-grossing drugs in America. In many cases, these “add-on” patents were for minor or obvious modifications — a different dosage form, for example — that don’t meet the standard for breakthrough invention that the patent system was designed to reward. Still, they have often succeeded in prolonging exclusivity well beyond the 20 years of protection intended under U.S. law. For example, the U.S. patent on Humira expired in 2016, but add-on patents and reported settlements made with generic suppliers will keep generic alternatives out of reach of patients until at least 2023.

For Lee in Kentucky, the high cost of Humira in the U.S. means her psoriasis hasn’t been treated in nearly a year. When the sores get really bad, she puts ice packs on her body, sits at her desk and fights back tears.

With 1 in 5 Americans expected to be 65 or older by 2030, the country is staring down the barrel of a massive health care and fiscal crisis. Unless something is done to stop frivolous patents from delaying generic entry, Medicare and the millions of seniors who rely on it will experience unprecedented strain.

Overpatenting is a problem that needs to be brought into full public view, starting with our representatives in Congress holding hearings so that patent abuse can be exposed. Right now, America’s patent system is far more sympathetic to claims of “originality” than those of other countries, and less likely to consider public health impact. It will ultimately take a motivated and mobilized citizenry to enact the necessary reforms to stop this root cause of high drug prices.

If we don’t act now, every one of us will one day face the nightmare of not being able to afford and access the medicines we need. For the millions of Americans like Lee who are in desperate need of relief, that nightmare is right now.

Priti Krishtel is the co-founder and co-executive director of I-MAK.org, a global nonprofit organization of attorneys, scientists and health experts who have worked to lower drug prices for 15 years.

drug costs – R&R – Reachout and Rebuild

Curb Drug Costs: Makes Sense For All

Drug Prices: How Pharma Games the System