WASHINGTON — A handful of newly elected Democrats, including Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Katie Porter of California put drug industry CEOs on the defensive Wednesday like they’ve never been before.
The trio of freshman lawmakers used an Oversight Committee hearing to press the CEOs of Teva, Celgene and Bristol-Myers Squibb — painfully and directly — on the results of an 18-month investigation into the pricing of two drugs: Teva’s Multiple Sclerosis drug copaxone and Bristol-Myers Squibb’s multiple myeloma drug revlimid.
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Such political horses**t. Democrats take money from lobbyists and try to get cheap scores on these sham hearings. All these new rabble rousers do not have the intelligence to parse scientific evidence or data analysis to uncover missdeeds. They just want oneliner abusive jabs. Mean time these innovative Pharma and Biotech companies are the envy of the world and create millions if good jobs in the USA, which these leeches feed upon.
I feel pharma are pigs at the pastry cart. Really impossible to defend much of how they do business.
However, they should’ve responded that the amount of money we have to pay politicians, physicians, PBMs to get our drugs covered and other special interests has to be recovered somehow.
And how is it that they are allowed to do pay-for-delay? Is it against the law? If not, why? Who makes the laws and regulations governing pharma?
X,
I bet you are a Democrat and hope to see H. R. 3 enacted. I am fine with that since I am an AARP member since 4 years ago and allowing Medicare to negotiate for drug pricing would surely lower many of my current high copsy expenses.
However, I really don’t care about others. My pocketbook gets the highest priority.
Also, it is so easy to parrot the hackneyed adjectives such as reasonsble and affordable price! What would be your definition? Who gets to decide and how should it be done?
Same question to you for stay within the bounds. What is your definition of bounds and how should it be done and how? So easy to gripe isn’t it?
For at least 20 years I believe I ve heard drug companies rather routinely stint on or just don t do R and D … but instead buy drugs they then raise prices on (sometimes very or extremely aggressively) to the detriment of those who need the drug whike riding those aggressive price hikes to enormous profits.
And with the gov paying for much research and development we need concern ourselves with getting to the rank bottom of the issue and solidifying a cure for the present and future sake of patients, public, and taxpayers alike.
Milking patients who need a drug…be it insulin…cancer treatment drugs…or high blood pressure drugs…for the any drugs that treat deadly diseases and conditions and those that keep patients among the living must be available at reasonable…
affordable prices.
A company lacking the moral and ethical willpower to stay within the bounds needs be taken to the woodshed and striped of the abusive profit–the manner of this could be in the form if enormous fines and clawbacks of the principal players undeserved pay and bonuses. If this is painful enough and well publicized enough it likely would have an impact in tamping down future wanna be perversions regarding enriching tgrmselves and shareholders by aggressively jacking the prices of their companys porffolio of drugs.
Clearly the problem is not going away without strong and focused attention