by Gabriel Levitt, Vice President, PharmacyChecker.com and Sam Werbalowsky, Pharmacychecker.com | Dec 5, 2013 | Advocacy, Drug Prices, Pharmaceutical Industry
A recent blog post on Philly.com by pharmaceutical industry expert Daniel Hoffman, Ph.D., exposes the hypocrisy of pharma’s addictions to high U.S. drug prices and deceptive marketing. Dr. Hoffman asserts that because the pharmaceutical industry is doing a bad job at generating revenues with new and innovative medications, and even flailing in its “me-too” drug business model, it has shifted to “economic hypocrisy and legal sophistry” to protect and generate revenue. Its shift may also be caused by increasing use of generics and compulsory licensing (allowing generic competition in spite of current patents), as well as the flat-out uproar against high drug prices, especially in the U.S.
Dr. Hoffman used data from our “American Made; Cheaper Abroad” series to highlight the incredible price gap between domestic and foreign prices of American made drugs. A price gap should exist; there’s nothing wrong with companies setting different prices in different countries. Poorer countries pay lower prices, and richer countries pay higher prices. The problem is that drug prices are excessively high in the U.S., so much so that they are often unaffordable for tens of millions of middle class Americans. The pharmaceutical industry takes advantage of a global economy and free trade agreements to keep manufacturing costs down and maximize patent terms. Despite reaping the rewards of globalization, the industry continues to try to prevent consumers from doing so, as exemplified by its efforts to stop Maine’s progressive law that facilitates safe personal drug importation. The industry’s bogus safety arguments about personal drug importation failed to stop the law from passing and now the drug and U.S. pharmacy industries are turning to the courts to protect profits.
Dr. Hoffman explains other legal ploys recently used by pharma, primarily to defend against charges of deceptive marketing practices. Johnson & Johnson, claiming its rights of due process were violated, tried to invalidate a request for documents by the City of Chicago in part because the city used an outside law firm that would receive a percentage of any settlement. In other words, J&J argued that by earning a percentage of a potential settlement, the law firm’s incentive to win was too strong and thus unfair to J&J! Facing similar charges, Merck argued against the Kentucky Attorney General’s similar arrangement with an outside law firm. A judge ruled against Merck’s complaint.
To quote the author, “So pharma vigorously seeks justice from the legal system when it tries to prevent foreign countries from exercising compulsory licensing (i.e. breaking patents), while it also claims the public’s representatives shouldn’t be allowed to obtain first-rate legal counsel.” Pharma is trying to create an unfair playing field, both in the legal area and within the global economy.
Tagged with: American Made Prescriptions Are Cheaper Abroad, Daniel Hoffman, Johnson and Johnson, Merck
by PharmacyChecker.com | Sep 11, 2013 | Advocacy, Drug Prices, Pharmaceutical Industry
A popular industry/government blog called Pharmalot, now Pharmalive.com/pharmalot published an op-ed written by our vice president, Gabriel Levitt, explaining why high drug prices are literally making Americans sick, costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, and how so little is being done by the government. The fact is that American consumers and taxpayers are getting pilloried under the weight of high drug prices. Personal drug importation through safe international online pharmacies is a life saver – sometimes literally because those who go without medication due to cost sometimes die. This won’t change until drug prices come down in America.
Tagged with: pharmacychecker, pharmalot
by PharmacyChecker.com | Aug 29, 2013 | Advocacy, Pharmaceutical Industry
Our friends at RxRights have chastised CVS’s new ExtraCare Pharmacy & Health Rewards program because its participants must sign a HIIPA waiver. HIIPA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, is the federal law that protects customers’ health information. RxRights is concerned that CVS will share its prescription sales data with pharmaceutical companies, assisting them in use direct to consumer marketing that can lead to higher medicine costs.
Check out the full blog post on RxRights.org.
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Jun 19, 2013 | Healthcare Reform, Pharmaceutical Industry, Politics
This week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of consumers over drug companies by ruling that pay-to-delay tactics by pharmaceutical companies could violate antitrust laws. This could mean speedier access to low-cost generic drugs, greater prescription adherence among cash-strapped Americans, and lower healthcare payments for taxpayers.
In this landmark case, Federal Trade Commission vs. Actavis, the Court decided 5-3 that generic drug company Actavis may have violated federal anti-trust laws in accepting payment from a brand name drug company, Solvay Pharmaceuticals, to delay manufacturing a generic version of AndroGel. An important caveat of the decision is that patent settlements between drug companies are not unlawful by definition but that the law is flexible enough on a case by case basis to conclude that pay-to-delay is anti-competitive, and under some circumstances illegal.
The FTC has estimated that Americans spend an extra $3.5 billion each year because of pay-to-delay practices. If drug companies are deterred from attempting pay-to-delay agreements then more generics will be found on U.S. pharmacy shelves faster. FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez summed up the decision: “The Supreme Court’s decision is a significant victory for American consumers, American taxpayers and free markets.”
Tagged with: pay for delay, Solvay, Supreme Court
by Gabriel Levitt, Vice President, PharmacyChecker.com and Sam Werbalowsky, Pharmacychecker.com | May 24, 2013 | Advocacy, Drug Prices, Pharmaceutical Industry
A group of over 100 doctors recently banded together to declare that “lower drug prices [are] a necessity to save the lives of patients who cannot afford them,” as written in their article in Blood, the medical journal published by the American Society of Hematology. We couldn’t agree with them more.
The doctors, experts in chronic myeloid leukemia, focused particularly on the drug Gleevec (imatinib), which costs around $100,000 annually per patient in the United States. Gleevec costs around $35,000 internationally.
There is nothing politically or economically radical about their position. In fact, they acknowledge the societal and political pressures that affect drug pricing, as well as the necessity of profits by drug companies to fund future research. They simply seek fair pricing.
Unfortunately, cancer medication prices are dramatically increasing and are not “fair.” To quote the Blood article: “imatinib may have set the pace for the rising cost of cancer drugs. Initially priced at nearly $30,000 per year when it was released in 2001, its price has now increased to $92,000 in 2012 (1), despite the fact that all research costs were accounted for in the original proposed price….”
Such protests can work; last year doctors at Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital pressured Sanofi into effectively halving Zaltrap’s initial market price of $11,000 by offering discounts. We hope that these precedents mobilize more doctors to hop on the bandwagon to further publicize that high drug prices in the U.S. are a serious threat to the public health.
Tagged with: cancer, Gleevec, Sanofi
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Mar 29, 2013 | Advocacy, Personal Drug Importation, Pharmaceutical Industry
The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) has applied to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to operate the registry .Pharmacy (dot pharmacy). Opposition to the application is picking up steam. Many believe that NABP’s efforts will merely serve to protect U.S. pharmacy and pharmaceutical interests at the expense of the public health by barring competition from safe non-U.S., international online pharmacies, which sell the same prescription drugs sold in the U.S. at a much lower price. Not only is the NABP application to ICANN is funded by pharmaceutical companies, but NABP’s named “Partners” in the ICANN application include Eli Lilly, a large drug company and the National Association of Chain Drugstores, a trade association representing the largest American pharmacy chains.
Opposition to NABP’s application to ICANN for .Pharmacy Registry
Public Citizen Position on NABPs Application to ICANN for .Pharmacy
RxRights.org Position on NABPs Application to ICANN for.Pharmacy
PharmacyChecker.com Position on NABPs Application to ICANN for .Pharmacy
If given the power to oversee the registry for the .Pharmacy top-level domain, the NABP would decide which websites are permitted to use the .Pharmacy ending in their web address. It appears that the NABP’s proposed registry rules would prohibit registry to websites of safe international online pharmacies (such as websites run by licensed Canadian pharmacies) if they sell internationally to Americans. The lack of a “.Pharmacy” address by such pharmacies could frighten Americans away from using them. Considering that tens of millions of Americans don’t take medication due to high U.S. drug prices, discouraging or blocking access to affordable medication is unconscionable.
As recognized in a letter sent from RxRights.org to NABP, it does not have to be this way. The goal of providing a trusted marketplace for consumers who are searching online for safe and affordable medication can be served with a .Pharmacy website program. However, to provide the greatest benefit to consumers, ALL online pharmacies, U.S., Canadian, or otherwise, that sell authentic medication and require prescriptions should be eligible to obtain a .Pharmacy site, regardless of who they sell to. Unless the NABP agrees to adopt registry rules fostering an open and free Internet, one that maximizes access to safe and affordable medication, its application should be rejected by ICANN.
Tagged with: Eli Lilly, ICANN, NABP, pharmacy, RxRights
