On September 15, 2021, member companies of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) made public an open letter to politicians on Capitol Hill to encourage Congress to work on drug pricing policies that would actually impact the amount patients pay out of pocket.
The companies – including Eli Lilly and Company, Novartis Corporation, AbbVie, AstraZeneca, GSK, Johnson & Johnson, and Pfizer – believe that policies that are often presented under the “guise of ‘Medicare negotiation,’” would threaten, not help, the access patients have to medicines and sacrifice future medical advances.
In the letter, the companies reference one proposal that would cut $1.5 trillion from “innovative research companies” over the next ten years, which could result in a 90% (or greater) reduction in new medicines developed by small and emerging biotech companies and have a disparate impact on new treatments into rare diseases, cancer, and neurological diseases.
The letter concludes by noting that the signatories “agree with leaders in Washington that Americans need help with their health care costs, but these dangerous policy experiments are not the answer.” They offer to work together to create bipartisan solutions that lower out-of-pocket costs for patients at the register without sacrificing future treatments, cures, or American leadership in scientific discovery.
Importantly, the letter was signed by every PhRMA member company and ran in several heavily read news sites in the Capitol region: Politico, The Hill, and the Washington Post.
PhRMA President and CEO Stephen J. Ubl, noted, “Those who signed this letter want to find a solution that will lower costs for patients, but we won’t accept empty promises that leave patients trapped in a broken insurance system or without access to life-saving medicines. We hope Democratic leaders will listen to these concerns – and the concerns of those in their own party – and take a more responsible approach that lowers costs for both the government and patients at the pharmacy.”
Dave Ricks, the CEO of Eli Lilly, said, “It’s [Medicare negotiation] really a smokescreen for implementing new government price controls. We cannot and will not support policies that hurt patient access.”
Ken Frazier, the Executive Chairman at Merck, said, “While large companies like Merck will survive, we will do significantly less research. We have looked at what this would be. We have modeled it, and our ability to fund R&D inside Merck will be reduced by almost half.” He specifically spoke on H.R. 3, which is pending in the House of Representatives, saying, “If we choose to make the choices inherent in H.R. 3, it will mean that we will lose that substantial funding for R&D, which means we will forego many important discoveries that will have an impact not just on the economy, not just on this industry, but on the many people who are waiting for those cures and treatments to come forward.”