September 28, 2016—The New York Times published a shocking article this morning about how drug companies tried to strong-arm a patient-advocacy group to keep quiet about obscenely high drug prices. As we’ve noted before, stories like these raise questions about what’s motivating some disease-awareness groups to bad-mouth the 340B drug discount program. [ms-protect-content id=”2799″]
In today’s Times article, reporter Katie Thomas describes what happened to Cyndi Zagieboylo, the chief executive of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, when she tried to bring drugmakers, insurers, and others together to talk about possible solutions to rising drug costs.
“Other patient groups would not join her, and she said she was told by members of Congress, as well as some of the pharmaceutical companies that donate to her group, to tread carefully,” Thomas reports.
“We were warned, you know, in a number of ways, just sort of to be careful about this,” Thomas quotes Zagieboylo as saying. “A couple of pharmaceutical companies mentioned, ‘Boy, we support you, why are you doing this to us?’”
The group was undeterred, however, and announced its Make MS Medications Accessible initiative last week. In a news release about the launch, it noted that “in 2004, the average annual cost for MS medications was $16,000; today it is $78,000 — that’s an increase of nearly 400 percent!” The society is urging the MS community “to get involved by contacting their candidates running for public office and asking them to support access to medications.”
“Ms. Zagieboylo said the pushback gave her pause,” the Times reported. “She said she and the group’s board members decided they had to be ready to lose donors over the issue, including drug companies.” [/ms-protect-content]