Clinton announces plan to respond to unjustified drug price increases
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Friday announced a new plan to protect Americans from unjustified price hikes of long-available prescription drugs with limited competition.
Clinton said in a news release her plan is aimed at drugs like Mylan N.V.’s EpiPen, for the treatment of severe allergic reactions, and pyrimethamine, the drug for a disease related to AIDS that Turing Pharmaceuticals raised the price of by more than 5,000 percent.
After speaking out against excessive prices for prescription drugs throughout the campaign and last week calling for Mylan to lower its EpiPen price. The cost of a package of two syringes is about $600. In response to the outcry, Mylan said it will offer more financial assistance with co-payments and will expand the number of uninsured patients who can get free EpiPens. The company said Monday it will soon introduce a generic version of EpiPen for $300 a two-pack. When Mylan acquired the EpiPen patent in 2007, the two-pack was around $94.
“Mylan’s recent actions have not gone far enough to remedy their outrageous price increase,” Clinton said Friday.
“Over the past year, we’ve seen far too many examples of drug companies raising prices excessively for long-standing, life-saving treatments with little or no new innovation or R&D,” she said.
“It’s time to move beyond talking about these price hikes and start acting to address them. All Americans deserve full access to the medications they need – without being burdened by excessive, unjustified costs.
“Our pharmaceutical and biotech industries are an incredible source of American innovation and revolutionary treatments for debilitating diseases. But I’m ready to hold drug companies accountable when they try to put profits ahead of patients, instead of back into research and innovation.”
Clinton said she’ll convene representatives of federal agencies charged with ensuring health and safety, as well as fair competition, to create a dedicated group charged with protecting consumers from outlier price increases. The group will determine an unjustified, outlier price increase based on specific criteria including the trajectory of the price increase; the cost of production; and the relative value to patients,among other factors that give rise to threatening public health.
Should an excessive, outlier price increase be determined for a longstanding treatment, Clinton’s plan would make new enforcement tools available including:
• Directly intervening to make treatments available, and supporting alternative manufacturers that enter the market and increase competition, to bring down prices and spur innovation in new treatments.
• Broadening access to safe, high-quality alternatives through emergency importation from developed countries with strong safety standards.
• Holding drug makers accountable for unjustified price increases with new penalties, such as fines – and using the funds or savings to expand access and competition.
According to Clinton, the recent price hikes by Mylan and Turing are not an isolated problem.
“Between 2008 and 2015, drug makers increased the prices of almost 400 generic drugs by over 1,000 percent,” the release stated. “Many of these companies are an example of a troubling trend – manufacturers that do not even develop the drug themselves, but acquire it and raise the price.”