Congress Members Want NIH Action on Pharma “Price Gouging”

by admin | January 12, 2016 2:21 pm

January 12, 2016—Fifty Members of Congress are asking the National Institutes of Health to use its existing statutory authority “to respond to the soaring cost of pharmaceuticals.” [ms-protect-content id=”2799″]

The letter came to light

• the day before the chairman of the biotechnology industry group BIO was quoted as saying public anger at drug companies is “an abomination” and that talk of drug company profiteering is “a perversion of reality”

• the same day that Irish drugmaker Shire announced that it was buying U.S. drugmaker Baxalta (recently spun off from Baxter) for $32 billion, creating the world’s biggest orphan drug company

• a day after The Wall Street Journal reported that Pfizer, Amgen, Allergan, Horizon Pharma and others “have raised U.S. drug prices for dozens of branded drugs since late December, with many of the increases between 9% and 10%”

“Too many families and providers are facing an extraordinary challenge from unreasonably priced pharmaceuticals,” the lawmakers said in a letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Mathews Burwell and NIH Director Francis Collins. “In short, too many drugs ‘are not available to the public on reasonable terms.’” The lawmakers were quoting from a 1980 law that empowers federal agencies that fund private research that results in a new drug patent to force the patent holder to license the drug to third parties. The members of Congress want NIH to issue guidance clarifying when agencies can assert the right. “We believe reasonable guidelines can discourage price gouging,” the lawmakers said.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), a founder of the congressional Affordable Drug Pricing Task Force created in November[1], released the undated letter[2] on his website Jan. 11. [/ms-protect-content]

Source URL: https://340bemployed.org/congress-members-want-nih-action-on-pharma-price-gouging/

---