They say there's no such thing as a free lunch. True enough, but we
ought to be able to afford it.
Take "Free Enterprise" for example.
Free Enterprise is a myth, and it's exposure is long overdue. Who
among us can rise to the challenge? Never fear. Corporate Capitalism
is doing the job for us.
Carl Jarvis
PS - The Baron Robbers named in this article are looked up to by many,
as successful, honorable citizens. They are not people I respect or
wish to hobnob with.
CJ
***
Subject: Article from Washington Post Section Eigh Section 2019 02 26
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Drug chiefs face Senate grilling on prices . Paige Winfield
Cunningham. Seven drug executives head to Capitol Hill on Tuesday for
a much-anticipated hearing
on the booming costs of prescription drugs in the United States. It's
the largest panel of pharmaceutical CEOs in decades to sit before a
congressional
committee, so expect sharp confrontations and pointed questions from
lawmakers about why these companies have hiked the price of their
medicines so dramatically.
The companies that will be represented at the Senate Finance Committee
hearing aren't the only ones responsible for big price increases over
the past two
decades. But the list prices on many of their top-selling medications
have drawn ire on and off Capitol Hill, prompting vows by President
Trump and top
committee leaders in Congress - including Finance Chairman Charles E.
Grassley (R-Iowa) and the committee's top Democrat, Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)
- to investigate
and intervene. The last thing these executives want to hear from
lawmakers is any reference to what they regard as government
price-fixing, either through
a Medicare experiment promised by Health and Human Services Secretary
Alex Azar or a more drastic policy pushed by Democrats to allow the
government to
directly negotiate the prices of Medicare prescription drugs. So, as
the executives are confronted by the lawmakers, they may stress a need
for better
policies to promote "biosimilar" drugs (drugs that closely mirror
approved medicines) as a way of introducing more competition. Here are
the executives
who will sit before the Finance Committee - and some specific
prescription drugs they could be asked to defend: l Albert Bourla, CEO
of Pfizer You've probably
seen television ads for Lyrica - a medication for nerve pain used by
patients with fibromyalgia, diabetes and spinal cord injuries. Its
list price - around
$650 for a bottle of 90 pills - has increased 163 percent since 2012.
Pfizer has been allowed to sell the medication exclusively since 2004,
and last year
was granted an additional six months of exclusivity after getting the
drug approved to treat seizures in children. That got the attention of
Wyden, who
wrote to the company in December, demanding an explanation of how much
money Lyrica generates and why the company says more price increases
are necessary.
l Richard Gonzalez, CEO of AbbVie There's one massively profitable
drug Gonzalez probably will be asked to defend, and that is AbbVie's
Humira. The arthritis
drug, which makes up 63 percent of the company's net revenue, has more
than doubled in price over the past six years, from about $19,000
annually in 2012
to more than $38,000 now. AbbVie raised Humira's price another 6.2
percent last month. Lawmakers have increasingly cited Humira and
Lyrica as prime examples
of unreasonable price hikes. House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah
E. Cummings (D-Md.) named them as the two top-selling drugs with the
steepest price
increases for 2017 in a May 2018 report from committee Democrats on
drug prices in the first year of the Trump administration. l Pascal
Soriot, CEO of
AstraZeneca The high-cholesterol drug Crestor, also named in the
Democratic report, is an example of how makers of branded drugs will
often increase prices
right before a generic competitor is introduced. Crestor cost about
$300 in 2016 but has undergone several price hikes since then,
including a 15 percent
increase right before a generic version came out. l Kenneth Frazier,
CEO of Merck Merck has taken great pains with its public image,
announcing last year
that it would cut list prices by at least 10 percent for several of
its drugs and promising the net price of its medicines wouldn't grow
faster than inflation.
Yet, as the Wall Street Journal has noted, the company hasn't lowered
prices for some of its top-selling drugs, including its immunotherapy
cancer drug
Keytruda (whose list price is $13,500 per month) and Januvia, a
non-insulin drug that helps lower the blood sugar of Type 2 diabetic
patients. l Olivier
Brandicourt, CEO of Sanofi Insulin - a drug that is essential to the
survival of diabetic patients, particularly those with Type 1 diabetes
- is getting
increasing attention in the cost debate, considering prices for this
medication have skyrocketed by more than 500 percent in some cases.
Sanofi will be
the only one of the big three insulin makers represented at the
hearing, so Brandicourt probably will get a lot of targeted questions.
Sanofi increased
the price for its long-acting insulin, Lantus, 77 percent from 2013 to
2019, Grassley and Wyden wrote in a letter to the company on Friday
announcing a
bipartisan investigation into insulin prices. The lawmakers also noted
that the price of two widely used short-acting insulins, Eli Lilly's
Humalog and
Novo Nordisk's Novolog, increased 585 percent and 87 percent,
respectively, during the same period. "These hardships can lead to
serious medical complications
that are entirely preventable and completely unacceptable for the
world's wealthiest country," the senators wrote. "In addition, the
increased price of
insulin has caused federal programs to pay more for diabetes care . .
. When one insulin product costs the taxpayer more than a billion
dollars in one
year, the American people ought to know how the company prices its
product. l Giovanni Caforio, CEO of Bristol-Myers Squibb Lawmakers
could raise concerns
about Bristol-Myers Squibb's acquisition of Celgene, which would be
one of the largest pharmaceutical mergers. Under the deal,
Bristol-Myers Squibb would
gain access to several cancer drugs, including the multiple myeloma
treatment Revlimid. Revlimid's price has risen 79 percent since 2012.
l Jennifer Taubert,
executive vice president of Janssen Pharmaceuticals, which is owned by
Johnson & Johnson (CEO Alex Gorsky was invited but won't be present)
Johnson & Johnson
is one of the companies that drew negative attention by announcing
price hikes around the beginning of the year. Some of the company's
best-selling products
- including blood thinner Xarelto, psoriasis treatment Stelara and
Zytiga, a prostate cancer drug - will be subject to price increases.
And Janssen Pharmaceuticals,
owned by Johnson & Johnson, was crafting a strategy last year to
change the size of tablets for a blood-cancer drug called Imbruvica
that typically costs
$148,000 annually. The new pricing plan would ensure taking lower
doses wouldn't save patients money or cut into Janssen's revenue, as
The Washington Post's
Carolyn Johnson reported.
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