Some Americans were primed for vaccine skepticism after decades of mistrust in Big Pharma
insider@insider.com (Allana Akhtar) 

 How distrust in pharmaceutical firms gave rise to the anti-vaxx movement, according to experts in the anti-vaccine movement and the history of Big Pharma. Samantha Lee/Insider

Claims of mismanagement and greed in the pharmaceutical industry may have contributed to vaccine hesitancy.

Of Americans who said they would "definitely not" get a COVID-19 vaccine, 20% say they trust drug companies, according to KFF.

Pharma companies are now lobbying against waiving intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines.

Ten months after the world's first COVID-19 vaccine received an emergency green light for use, the US is still reeling from COVID cases among mostly unvaccinated Americans.

Among Americans who said in a recent survey that they will "definitely not" get a COVID-19 vaccine, only 20% said they trust pharmaceutical companies to provide reliable information, according to Ashley Kirzinger, the associate director of public opinion and survey research at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Pharmaceutical companies large and small are responsible for advancements in medical treatments that have helped cure diseases, relieve chronic pain, and save lives. Several developed COVID-19 vaccines that are highly effective at preventing severe disease.

But publicized claims of mismanagement and greed among some of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, collectively known as Big Pharma, have eroded public trust and, in turn, have contributed to vaccine hesitancy among some Americans, experts told Insider.

"In the '50s, after World War II, the drug industry was highly respected; they saved hundreds of thousands of lives," Gerald Posner, investigative journalist and the author of "Pharma: Greed, Lies, and the Poisoning of America," said in an interview. "They lost that over decades of greed and mismanagement."

Now, as some pharmaceutical companies lobby to keep their COVID-19 vaccine formulas out of the hands of manufacturers in low-income countries (thereby maximizing profits from the life-saving shot), some Americans may develop a renewed distrust of Big Pharma, Posner said.

"[Pharmaceutical companies] are behaving as if they have absolutely no responsibility beyond maximizing the return on investment," Tom Frieden, infectious disease expert and a former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told The New York Times.

Skepticism of Big Pharma has been decades in the making

American trust in Big Pharma reached a peak in the early-to-mid 20th century, when the pharmaceutical industry ushered in life-saving treatments like penicillin and vaccines, as Patrick Radden Keefe reports in his book "Empire of Pain."

Public trust started to erode, however, with the invention and widespread adoption of addictive drugs, Keefe reported. Gallup, whose polling has placed pharmaceutical companies as America's least liked industry for the past two decades, attributes the public's dislike to the companies' high drug prices, tremendous lobbying budgets, and their roles in the opioid epidemic.

Over the last 50 years, lawsuits began piling up against pharmaceutical companies, including those that developed COVID-19 vaccines.

In 2013, Johnson & Johnson settled a federal investigation involving marketing fraud of several drugs, including one to treat dementia patients. Reuters reported in 2018 that small amounts of asbestos were found in the company's baby powder between the early 1970s and the early 2000s. The report claimed that the company failed to disclose that information, which Johnson & Johnson has repeatedly denied. The company is facing thousands of lawsuits alleging that the talc-based products caused cancer and mesothelioma.

Last year, 46 US states sued 26 drug makers, including Pfizer, over allegations of conspiring to drive up drug prices. (Pfizer told Reuters the company did not behave in unlawful conduct.)

In 2009, Pfizer, which produced the first FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine, paid the second-largest healthcare fraud settlement in US history to settle accusations of misleading advertising of an anti-inflammatory drug. When asked to comment on this article, a Pfizer spokesperson told Insider the company "cannot speculate why some remain vaccine hesitant, but vaccination remains one of the best tools we have to help protect lives and work to achieve herd immunity."

The anti-vaccine movement in the US, which gained momentum in the early 2000s, has tried to use drug industry scandals to discourage parents from inoculating their children, according to Dr. Stewart Lyman, the owner of Lyman Biopharma Consulting LLC and a vaccine advocate.

In the mid-2010s, measles in children began resurfacing despite the CDC having declared measles as eliminated from the US in 2000. Some anti-vaccine believers fought for personal exemptions for vaccine mandates during local measles outbreaks.

Others within the movement said not to trust the pharmaceutical company Merck with vaccines because of a whistleblower complaint claiming that the company overstated the effectiveness of the shot. (Merck did not respond to Insider's request for comment.)

© Provided by Business Insider "In the fifties, after World War II, the drug industry was highly respected; they saved hundreds of thousands of lives," Gerald Posner, and investigative journalist and the author of "Pharma: Greed, Lies, and the Poisoning of America, said in an interview. "They lost that over decades of greed and mismanagement." 

Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images

Big Pharma's business model drives mistrust among vaccine skeptics

Kirzinger told Insider anecdotal data from Kaiser suggests some Americans are hesitant about the COVID-19 vaccine due to how pharmaceutical industries profit from shots, despite the shots being rigorously tested by scientists before given to the public and built on decades of research.

Vaccine makers have made billions in revenue by selling the shots to countries, and soaring pharmaceutical stocks have minted a class of "vaccine billionaires."

"[Some vaccine hesitant Americans] are talking about distrust of Pharma because they think that they're mostly concerned about profits rather than safety," Kirzinger said.

The price of the life-saving hormone insulin, for example, has skyrocketed in the last decade, costing diabetes patients around $300 for a 10-millimeter vial, up from about $93 in 2009. Many low-income Americans have resorted to rationing insulin to make it last longer, and lawmakers are pressuring drug companies to reduce costs.

Still, pharma companies are currently lobbying President Joe Biden to prevent him from waiving intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines - thereby keeping manufacturers in poor countries from making life-saving shots for vulnerable populations.

And while some vaccine makers like Johnson & Johnson have sold COVID-19 vaccines at cost, others, including Pfizer and Moderna, have sold them for a profit.

A secret reason Rx drugs cost so much: 

A global web of patent laws protects Big Pharma

January 28, 2020 Faisal Chaudhry


Advocates for lower drug prices held a vigil on Sept. 5, 2019 outside of Eli Lilly in New York City, honoring those who have lost their lives due to the high cost of insulin. Eric McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images

The high price of insulin, which has reached as much as US$450 per month, has raised outrage across the country. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has called it a national embarrassment, wondering why U.S. residents should have to drive to Canada to buy cheaper insulin.

As a legal scholar who focuses on the contradictory role of property rights on economic well-being, including through the role of intellectual property rights, my research makes it clear that drug pricing is far more complicated than any candidate on the debate stage has time to explain.

To fully understand these complexities requires looking at a web of international patent law and trade agreements.    

 

Insulin was discovered almost 100 years ago, saving the lives of many people with diabetes. Its soaring costs in recent years has brought outcries from patients and politicians. John Fredricks/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Why no generic insulin?

Scientists working in Canada’s public sector discovered insulin nearly a century ago. The first techniques for synthesizing the compound, which should have more readily allowed for the production of generic versions, emerged some four decades ago. Yet today insulin remains unavailable in any significant generic version.

One of the three companies that control 90% of the world insulin market, Eli Lilly, recently did bow to public pressure by announcing a forthcoming “authorized generic” version called Lispro. But that could still run some people $140 per prescription.

U.S. consumers are not alone in facing high prices of insulin and other life-saving drugs. For the last two decades, intense controversy has raged around multinational pharmaceutical giants being able to monopolize access to vital medicines the world over. A key means of doing so is through the legal power of patents, and the monopoly-like profits – or what some experts call unearned economic rents – they guarantee.

Think of rent as a windfall gained for making little effort of one’s own. Being “unearned,” rents are thus usually distinguished from ordinary business profits. In this way, they are comparable to the fees a medieval lord would charge for access to cropland on a vast estate.

To fully explain the problem of economic rents and access to medicines, however, we need to look still further: to the controversies that have swirled around pharmaceutical patents in countries far less wealthy than the U.S.

A worldwide problem, but hidden from sight

For more than 20 years, in various parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America, countries have been battling a global system of rent-taking, or “rentierism” for short, that disproportionately benefits Big Pharma.

This state of affairs could not exist without the government officials whom Big Pharma has lobbied successfully in wealthy countries. Patents and other intellectual property rights allow the multinationals to capture rent by evading competition for years on end.

This global battle around pharmaceutical patents began in earnest with the founding of the World Trade Organization(WTO) in 1994. This included an annex agreement on intellectual property rights known as the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.

Many countries already allowed for patents before 1994, but only on “processes” of manufacture or synthesis. After 1994, WTO member countries were required to extend patents to the vital end products of such processes as well.

For inhabitants of developing countries, whose greatest public health problems at the time derived from diseases like malaria, tuberculosis and HIV-AIDS, this crystallized various questions of great import. Should the agreements enable Big Pharma’s monopoly-like patent rights to trump the ability of the sick and dying to obtain generic versions of life savings medicines? And if so, to what extent?

By 2001, all WTO member states officially had conceded the rights of developing countries to take measures to increase access to lifesaving medicines. But Big Pharma and its allies have never relented in pressing for more, not less, stringent intellectual property protections around the world.

Shaky justifications

Since 1994, Big Pharma has imposed ever more severe requirements around patent rights. They have insisted that patent rights are necessary to “incentivize” the availability of drugs for conditions like tuberculosis and malaria that, having no markets in the developed world, require guaranteed premiums from whatever countries they are sold in.

Yet for just as long, critics have alleged that Big Pharma typically uses inflated, misleading or otherwise opaque cost data to tout the billions of dollars it claims to spend on drug development. Likewise, critics have continuously called attention to the way that most drug development is built on publicly funded research.

And, finally, critics have never stopped highlighting the fact that Big Pharma long ago largely abandoned research and development for drugs for infectious ailments in developing nations, and increasingly switched to spending on blockbuster noninfectious disease drugs.

Yet as diseases such as cancer and heart disease begin to take an even greater toll in the developing world, patents will extract an ever greater toll on patient populations across the world.

In a developing world where public health problems increasingly look similar to the developed world’s, in fact, multinational pharmaceutical corporations could become better – not worse – placed to expand their profits by tapping new markets for drugs like insulin and beta blockers.

A convergence between the sick across the globe

One unexpected lesson from this is that ordinary people around the world will increasingly find themselves in the same boat when it comes to accessing the medicines they need.

Therefore, if countries in the developing world are forced to give up the fight against patent rentierism, it should be a concern both to their own residents and to residents of wealthy countries too.

Just this past September, for example, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi signaled that his country – which has a robust generic drugs industry that supplies low-cost medicines to people around the world – was ready to concede to the demands of Big Pharma by moving toward abdicating his country’s vital role as “the pharmacy of the world.” India has now signed an interim trade agreement with the Trump administration that will require it to more strictly enforce the patent rights of pharmaceutical multinationals, with the latest news reports indicating it may even now be finalized.

Over the course of the current battle for the Democratic nomination, many will have heard about the plight of residents of Michigan who are left asking how insulin costs 10 times in the U.S. what it costs 10 minutes away across our northern border.

Given the larger conversation about patent rents and access to medicines that we should be having, however, it behooves those of us who live in places like the U.S. to look not only to Canada but to what is happening around the world, where the sick and dying face increasingly similar ailments – and fights – as our own.

Author

Faisal Chaudhry
Professor of Law, University of Dayton
Disclosure statement
Faisal Chaudhry has received funding from the Mellon Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Fulbright Program of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States Department of State and Harvard University.
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 PUBLIC OWNERSHIP OF BIG PHARMA NOW!

New Report From Rep. Katie Porter Reveals How Big Pharma Pursues 'Killer Profits' at the Expense of Americans' Health

"It's time we reevaluate the standards for approving these mergers. It's time we pass legislation to lower drug prices. And it's time we rethink the structure of leadership at big pharmaceutical companies."

by

Brett Wilkins, staff writer

A new report from Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) reveals how Big Pharma uses mergers and acquisitions to increase profits at the expense of Americans' healthcare. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc.) 

Rep. Katie Porter on Friday published a damning report revealing the devastating effects of Big Pharma mergers and acquisitions on U.S. healthcare, and recommending steps Congress should take to enact "comprehensive, urgent reform" of an integral part of a broken healthcare system. 

"In 2018, the year that Donald Trump's tax giveaway to the wealthy went into effect, 12 of the biggest pharmaceutical companies spent more money on stock buybacks than on research and development."
—Report

The report, entitled Killer Profits: How Big Pharma Takeovers Destroy Innovation and Harm Patients, begins by noting that "in just 10 years, the number of large, international pharmaceutical companies decreased six-fold, from 60 to only 10."

While pharmaceutical executives often attempt to portray such consolidation as a means to increase operational efficiency, the report states that "digging a level deeper 'exposes a troubling industry-wide trend of billions of dollars of corporate resources going toward acquiring other pharmaceutical corporations with patent-protected blockbuster drugs instead of putting those resources toward' discovery of new drugs."

Merger and acquisition (M&A) deals are often executed to "boost stock prices," to "stop competitors," and to "acquire an innovative blockbuster drug with an enormous prospective revenue stream." 

"Instead of spending on innovation, Big Pharma is hoarding its money for salaries and dividends," the report says, "all while swallowing smaller companies, thus making the marketplace far less competitive." 

Today, our office released a bombshell report exposing the devastating effects of Big Pharma’s mergers and acquisitions. Featuring exclusive interviews with former Immunex, and later Amgen employees, our report shows how consolidation curbs innovation at the expense of patients.

— Rep. Katie Porter (@RepKatiePorter) January 29, 2021

Our report is clear: Consolidation destroys scientific cultures that once celebrated creativity and transforms them into places that cater to the whims of shortsighted shareholders.

But our investigation also shows how we can chart a new path forward https://t.co/1jxtK9J6rh

— Rep. Katie Porter (@RepKatiePorter) January 29, 2021

The report calls M&As "just the tip of the iceberg of pharmaceutical companies' anti-competitive, profit-driven behaviors":

Pharmaceutical companies often claim that lowering the prices of prescription drugs in the United States would devastate innovation. Yet, as prices have skyrocketed over the last few decades, these same companies' investment in research and development have failed to match this same pace. Instead, they've dedicated more and more of their funds to enrich shareholders or to purchase other companies to eliminate competition.

"In 2018, the year that [former President] Donald Trump's tax giveaway to the wealthy went into effect, 12 of the biggest pharmaceutical companies spent more money on stock buybacks than on research and development," the report notes.

Some key findings from the report:

• Big pharmaceutical companies are not responsible for most major breakthroughs in new drugs. Rather, innovation is driven in small firms, which are often spun off of taxpayer-funded academic research. These small labs are then purchased by giant firms after they've assumed the risk needed to develop a blockbuster drug;
• Instead of producing lifesaving drugs for diseases with few or no cures, large pharmaceutical companies often focus on small, incremental changes to existing drugs in order to kill off generic threats to their government-granted monopoly patents; and
• Mergers in the pharmaceutical industry have had an overall negative effect on innovation, taking what little competition existed in the industry and completely destroying it.

"Competition is central to capitalism," Porter said in a press release introducing the report. "As our report shows, Big Pharma has little incentive to invest in new, critically needed drugs. Instead, pharmaceutical giants are free to devote their resources to acquiring smaller companies that might otherwise force them to compete."

"Lives are on the line; it's clear the federal government needs to reform how it evaluates healthcare mergers and patent abuses," Porter added. 

To that end, Porter's report recommends the following actions:

• Removing incentives that prioritize investors and Wall Street over patients;
• Reevaluating the standards used by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for healthcare mergers;
• Altering the presumption that most mergers and acquisitions are legal unless contested by an individual or group;
• Lowering the cost of prescription drugs. Congress should pass legislation that reins in skyrocketing costs. This can begin with drug price negotiation legislation, such as the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act, but must extend to include a larger class of drugs and cover all payers and the uninsured; and
• Preventing anti-competitive abuses of the drug patenting system. Congress should pass legislation, such as the such as the Preserve Access to Affordable Generics and Biosimilars Act, the Affordable Prescriptions for Patients Through Promoting Competition Act, and the Stop STALLING Act, to stop abuses of the regulatory process.

"It's time we reevaluate the standards for approving these mergers," the report concludes. "It's time we pass legislation to lower drug prices. And it's time we rethink the structure of leadership at big pharmaceutical companies. Together, these strategies can help us bring more innovative, and critically needed, cures and treatments to market."

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 FROM MY EMAIL

DEAR FELLOW AMERICAN It may be a new year, but Big Pharma is still up to the same antics: raising prices on Americans. Katie isn’t letting this stand. The high cost of prescription drugs hurts all of us. Since January 1st, the price of over 450 prescription drugs have already been raised–some by as much as 9%. This is unacceptable. Add your name to hold Big Pharma accountable. ADD YOUR NAME As a taxpayer, your tax dollars are spent covering what Big Pharma charges Medicare for these prescriptions. Katie’s been advocating that we fix this by allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices–which would save taxpayers billions. She’s also introduced legislation to stop Big Pharma from price-gouging patients. Still, Big Pharma continues to spend millions on lobbying, hoping they can drown out the voices of families across the country. Katie’s proud to be one of just a few members of Congress who doesn’t take a dime of Big Pharma’s money. Show your support for Katie’s legislation to lower the cost of prescription drugs by signing our petition. Thanks for being a part of our movement, Team Katie Porter PAID FOR BY KATIE PORTER FOR CONGRESS. DOES NOT EQUAL ENDORSEMENT.

Big Pharma Flooding Airwaves With Disinformation to Kill Drug Price Reform

"Powerful interest groups out there don't want this legislation to succeed, so they're pouring dark money into efforts to stop it," said one Democratic senator.


The group American Commitment is running ads in several states attacking Democrats' plan to lower prescription drug prices. (Photo: Screengrab/American Commitment)

JAKE JOHNSON

July 29, 2022

While its thousands of lobbyists work fervently on Capitol Hill, the pharmaceutical industry is flooding the airwaves in several states with deceptive ads in a last-ditch campaign to block Senate Democrats' plan to curb the unchecked pricing power of drug corporations.

Included as part of a reconciliation package negotiated by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the proposal would require Medicare to negotiate the prices of a small number of drugs directly with pharmaceutical companies, which can currently drive up costs as they please—boosting their profits at the expense of patients.

"We aim to pass reforms to lower Rx prices in the coming days and curb pharma's power to dictate prices to Americans. Let's see it through."

The measure would also cap out-of-pocket medicine costs at $2,000 a year for recipients of Medicare Part D, the prescription drug benefit provided through private plans approved by the federal government.

The drug industry—which has repeatedly fought off price regulation attempts in recent decades—has lashed out furiously against Democrats' plan, even though it is in some ways significantly weaker than a proposal that the House passed last year. Republicans bankrolled by Big Pharma are also working to tank the bill.

Roll Call reported Friday that the "Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the National Association of Manufacturers, and a group called American Commitment have collectively spent millions of dollars on ads in July" to attack Democrats' proposal, key parts of which are overwhelmingly popular with the American public.

"We're going to use every tool in the toolbox to relentlessly educate lawmakers about the flaws in this bill," declared Stephen Ubl, president of PhRMA, the nation's leading drug industry trade group.

American Commitment, a nonprofit with ties to the Koch Brothers, launched a new seven-figure ad buy on Thursday, targeting audiences in Washington, D.C. as well as West Virginia, Nevada, and Georgia.

The ads, which can be viewed in full on American Commitment's website, recycle the false and repeatedly debunked claim that Democrats' bill would cut "nearly $300 billion from Medicare," distorting the Congressional Budget Office's estimate that the legislation would save the federal government roughly $290 billion over ten years.

The American Prosperity Alliance, a dark money group, is running similarly misleading ads.



Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) responded directly to the ads—one of which attacks her directly—in a speech on the Senate floor earlier this week, noting that the 30-second spots led hundreds of constituents to call her office seeking an explanation.

"They were anxious and alarmed over a deliberately misleading ad that is running on TV, on Facebook, and via a text campaign," said Cortez Masto. "In Reno this past weekend, Nevadans came up to me because they were concerned about these false accusations. This ad incorrectly claims that I support a bill that would strip $300 billion dollars from Medicare. This couldn't be further from the truth."

"Powerful interest groups out there don't want this legislation to succeed, so they're pouring dark money into efforts to stop it," the senator continued. "Well, let me just say this: it won't work."

In an analysis of Democrats' proposal published Wednesday, the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) concluded that the bill has the potential to "limit annual increases in drug prices for people with Medicare and private insurance" and "provide substantial financial protection to people on Medicare with high out-of-pocket costs."

The precise impact of the legislation, KFF stressed, will depend on which prescription drugs Medicare chooses to negotiate. A separate KFF analysis released last year found that a small number of drugs make up a major share of Medicare's prescription drug spending.

"We are inches from the goal line," David Mitchell, the founder of Patients for Affordable Drugs, tweeted Friday. "We aim to pass reforms to lower Rx prices in the coming days and curb pharma's power to dictate prices to Americans. Let's see it through."

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GOP 'Working Hand in Hand With Big Pharma' to Kill Drug Price Reform Behind Closed Doors

"Republicans are going to use every tool they have to keep drug prices high and drug industry profits higher," said one Democratic senator.


Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) talks with Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) during a hearing

JAKE JOHNSON

July 27, 2022

Republican lawmakers are working behind closed doors to convince the Senate parliamentarian—the chamber's unelected rules arbiter—to tank Democrats' watered-down but still potentially impactful proposal to require Medicare to negotiate the prices of a small number of prescription drugs directly with pharmaceutical companies.

Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), a major beneficiary of pharmaceutical industry campaign cash, admitted as much in remarks to reporters on Tuesday, saying that he and his GOP colleagues are "going through line by line, literally, making objections" in private meetings with the Senate parliamentarian, who is tasked with offering advice on whether reconciliation provisions comply with chamber rules.

"Folks in Idaho need to know he's not working for them—he's working for Big Pharma."

Under the Senate's Byrd Rule, every provision of a reconciliation package must have a direct, not "merely incidental," impact on the federal budget. Democrats contend their Medicare proposal meets that requirement, citing the Congressional Budget Office's recent estimate that the plan would save the federal government $290 billion over 10 years.

But Crapo insisted Tuesday that "there are many Byrd objections," and Politico reported that Democrats are currently "making tweaks" to the legislation to ensure it survives the parliamentarian's scrutiny—even though the official's opinions are nonbinding and can be overruled.

"Republicans are working hand in hand with Big Pharma to try to block Democrats from lowering drug prices," warned Social Security Works, a progressive advocacy group.

The GOP's efforts come as the pharmaceutical industry is mobilizing its huge army of Capitol Hill lobbyists in a last-ditch campaign to defeat Democrats' plan, which would require Medicare to directly negotiate the prices of a subset of prescription drugs—an idea that is overwhelmingly popular with the U.S. public.

While Democrats' proposal has faced criticism from progressive lawmakers who say it doesn't do enough to challenge the pharmaceutical industry's power to drive up costs, advocates and experts say the bill could still have a significant effect on prices for seniors and people with disabilities, given that a small number of medicines account for a major portion of Medicare's prescription drug spending.

"Sen. Mike Crapo is proud that he's trying to gut legislation to lower drug prices supported by more than 70% of Americans," said David Mitchell, the founder of Patients for Affordable Drugs. "Legislation to improve health and save Americans money. Folks in Idaho need to know he's not working for them—he's working for Big Pharma."

Related Content

Big Pharma Has Raised Drug Prices 1,186 Times This Year, Analysis Shows

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is aiming to get the Medicare proposal as well as a plan to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies through the chamber before the August recess, which is set to begin next week.

In the face of unanimous Republican opposition, Democrats will need the support of all fifty senators in their caucus to pass the reconciliation package, which is exempt from the 60-vote filibuster.

"Republicans are going to use every tool they have to keep drug prices high and drug industry profits higher," Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) warned Tuesday.

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) added that "every single elected Republican in the Senate is about to vote against reducing the cost of prescription drugs for those on Medicare."

"This is not a show vote or a symbolic thing—we are going to make a new law," Schatz wrote. "It will save seniors thousands of dollars a year."
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‘Is it better than nothing? I suppose’: Sanders disappointed by Dems’ drug pricing plan

"It's a very weak proposal" but "we're dealing with the power of PhRMA over the Congress," he said, taking aim at industry lobbyists.

By

 Jessica Corbett

 -

July 27, 2022

SOURCECommon Dreams

Bernie Sanders (Crush Rush via Shutterstock)

Senate Budget Committee Chair Bernie Sanders on Tuesday blasted Democrats’ watered-down drug pricing plan and suggested pharmaceutical industry lobbying weakened the proposal.

“It goes nowhere near as far as it should.”

“It’s a very weak proposal. It goes nowhere near as far as it should,” Sanders (I-Vt.) told NBC News‘ Sahil Kapur.

The deal unveiled earlier this month would enable Medicare to negotiate the prices of a limited number of prescription drugs. Other provisions include creating a $2,000 out-of-pocket cap for Medicare Part D beneficiaries, stopping brand-name manufacturers from blocking generic options, and penalizing companies that raise prices faster than inflation.

The plan is notably backed by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)—who last year blocked a House-approved budget reconciliation package and said this month that he wouldn’t support new climate spending or tax hikes on the rich and large corporations.

Sanders, who pushed for a sweeping package last year and has long been a leading Medicare for All advocate, pointed to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) as a model for drug price negotiation.

“The American people want Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices like the VA does,” the senator said Tuesday, according to The Hill.

“The VA has been doing that for decades. The prices they pay are about half as much as Medicare. This thing will only apply to a certain number of drugs,” Sanders continued, noting that parts of the proposal would not take effect until 2026.

“So it’s a weak proposal. Is it better than nothing? I suppose,” he added of Democrats’ plan.

Sanders also took aim at industry lobbying, specifically calling out the trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). As he put it: “We’re dealing with the power of PhRMA over the Congress. They don’t lose very often.”

As Common Dreams reported last week, Big Pharma is mobilizing an army of lobbyists to tank Democrats’ drug reform plan while hiking the price of prescription medications.

“Pharma is spending millions to defeat a very modest drug pricing bill,” Sanders tweeted Friday. “Joe Manchin, who is blocking climate action, is the major recipient of fossil fuel campaign contributions. This is how a corrupt political system works.”

PEOPLE BEFORE PROFITS
Big pharma quietly planning price hike for COVID vaccines in 'near future': report

PUBLIC OWNERSHIP OF BIG PHARMA

Common Dreams
March 20, 2021

www.rawstory.com

Eager to capitalize on the lasting presence of the coronavirus, executives at Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, and Pfizer—the pharmaceutical corporations that supplied the Covid-19 vaccines approved for use in the U.S.—are quietly planning to hike prices on doses "in the near future," once they decide the pandemic is over, The Intercept's Lee Fang reported Thursday.

"Companies like Pfizer, which has not made the vaccine available to 85% of the world's population... are now waiting for the opportune time to raise prices once enough people have been vaccinated."
—Achal Prabhala, Access IBSA

Although the rapid development of coronavirus vaccines—made possible by large infusions of public resources—has given Big Pharma companies "a boost in goodwill... the public is still sensitive to drug pricing and the reputational risk has, so far, curtailed their ability to reap large financial rewards," Fang noted. "But that environment, they hope, will change once the pandemic ends: a date that drugmakers themselves reserve the right to declare."
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Many epidemiologists expect the coronavirus to become endemic, "and as Covid-19 mutations continue to spread and booster shots may be required on a regular basis, leaders from the three companies are enthusiastic about cashing in," wrote Fang.

"As this shifts from pandemic to endemic, we think there's an opportunity here for us," Pfizer's Chief Financial Officer Frank D'Amelio said during a recent healthcare conference sponsored by Barclays Bank. The potential need for booster shots, D'Amelio added, provides "a significant opportunity for our vaccine from a demand perspective, from a pricing perspective, given the clinical profile of our vaccine."

According to Fang, "Moderna and Johnson & Johnson have also pledged affordability for their vaccines for the duration of the pandemic but have indicated to investors that they plan to return to more 'commercial' pricing as early as later this year."

The three companies behind the approved Covid-19 vaccines, which are "already poised to be some of the most lucrative drugs of all time," expect to "bring in billions in profit this year alone," Fang noted.

That's true, Fang added, even though "the U.S. government has fully financed the research and development" of Moderna and Johnson & Johnson's vaccines, while Pfizer's vaccine "was developed in partnership with BioNTech, a company that received nearly $500 million in development assistance from the German government."

According to Fang:

Pfizer, one of the early global leaders in the vaccine race, is very clear about the enormous moneymaking opportunity they see in the vaccines. D'Amelio, the company's CFO, spoke on a Zoom call last Thursday at the Barclays Global Healthcare Conference, to discuss the issue.

Carter Lewis Gould, an analyst with Barclays Bank, noted that Pfizer faced the particular challenges with "optics" but asked when the company could "pursue higher pricing down the road."

The current pricing, said D'Amelio, is "clearly not being driven by what I'll call normal market conditions, normal market forces," but rather the "pandemic state that we've been in and the needs of governments to really secure doses from the various vaccine suppliers." Once the pandemic ends, he continued, there will be "significant opportunity" for Pfizer.

Pfizer has agreed to prices of $19.50 per coronavirus vaccine dose in the U.S. and almost $64 per dose in the European Union, leading to projections that the company would bring in "$15 billion this year alone from sales, of which $4 billion would be purely profit," Fang wrote. But "those revenue projections are based on prices largely negotiated with governments under pandemic conditions, which could soon change."

As Common Dreams has reported, drugmakers have faced pressure from dozens of lawmakers and hundreds of civil society groups who are demanding that vaccine recipes be shared with manufacturers in developing countries, where inoculation rates are far lower. A failure to boost global vaccine production, experts say, will prolong the pandemic—exacerbating needless economic suffering and preventable deaths and possibly undermining the efficacy of vaccines as variants emerge.

Through its massive army of lobbyists, Big Pharma has been fighting calls to regulate drug prices as well as the India and South Africa-led proposal—supported by 70% of the U.S. public but opposed by President Joe Biden and the leaders of other wealthy nations—to temporarily waive the World Trade Organization's patent protections, which currently enable a handful of private companies to monopolize knowledge and technology related to coronavirus tests, treatments, and vaccines.

Fang wrote that Pfizer's Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla told investors during a call that "the company had little to worry about in terms of political opposition."

"We believe the industry has generated a great deal of goodwill with Congress and public opinion through our Covid-19 treatment and vaccine efforts," said Bourla.

During last week's Barclays Bank-hosted healthcare conference, Fang wrote, Moderna President Stephen Hoge said that "post-pandemic, as we get into those what I will call seasonal epidemics that you would expect to happen with a SARS-CoV-2 virus, we would expect more normal pricing based on value."

And at the Raymond James Institutional Investors Conference earlier this month, Fang noted, Johnson & Johnson's Executive Vice President Joseph Wolk told investors that the company would "reevaluate the vaccine for 'pricing that's much more in line with a commercial opportunity' when the pandemic is over."

As Fang reported:

Wolk noted that the end of the pandemic is a "fluid" question. The announcement, Wolk said, would come down to a percentage of people vaccinated, though he did not give any specific figures. The "pandemic period will be in place for the majority of this year, if not the entire piece of this year," he continued, before making it clear that the declaration would be left to Johnson & Johnson.

"I think when we look at it, it's not going to be something that's dictated to us," said Wolk.
The end of the pandemic may be declared by the World Health Organization or other international bodies. Drug firms, however, are not under a legal requirement to make prices based on the WHO's determination.

Achal Prabhala, coordinator for the AccessIBSA project, which advocates for access to medicines, told Fang that "Americans are amazed that they're getting vaccines for free. And of course they're not because they've already paid for them once and now they're amazed that they're not paying for them twice."

"Companies like Pfizer, which has not made the vaccine available to 85% of the world's population, are enjoying immense popularity in the U.S. and Europe because of the fact that they got the vaccines done fast, and they seem to work well," Prabhala continued. "That's an unusually good position for pharma, they're not used to being thought of as saviors."

"It's pretty interesting," he added, "that they are now waiting for the opportune time to raise prices once enough people have been vaccinated."

Big Pharma's profit-maximizing behavior, as documented in The Intercept's new reporting, is part of a long-standing pattern.

For instance, hospitalizations skyrocketed last year, but routine visits to the doctor's office and demand for new prescription medications fell sharply as a result of the pandemic. As Common Dreams reported at the time, the pharmaceutical industry planned to make up for lost revenue by raising prices on more than 300 drugs in the U.S. on January 1.

"Big Pharma's greed is a danger to public health," Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) said last summer, when Gilead announced that it would charge U.S. hospitals $3,120 per privately insured patient for a treatment course of remdesivir, a Covid-19 drug whose development was financed in large part by taxpayers.

Last week, before the latest reporting on Big Pharma's plans to raise Covid-19 vaccine prices in the coming months, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) urged Biden to join the more than 100 countries that support an emergency waiver of the WTO's restrictive intellectual property rights agreement.

"It is unconscionable," said Sanders, "that amid a global health crisis, huge multibillion dollar pharmaceutical companies continue to prioritize profits by protecting their monopolies and driving up prices rather than prioritizing the lives of people everywhere, including in the Global South."

Breakingviews -

 Big Pharma’s vaccine immunity will be fleeting

By Aimee Donnellan

BREAKINGVIEWS CORONAVIRUS
DECEMBER 18, 2020




LONDON (Reuters Breakingviews) - Big Pharma’s vaccine victory lap may be cut short. The industry’s triumph in dispensing inoculations less than a year after the discovery of the deadly coronavirus has partially vindicated the business models of groups like Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca. But as governments took on much of the risk, pharma groups’ pricing will remain a target after the pandemic.

Riding to the world’s rescue is a welcome corrective for the battered pharmaceutical industry. In recent years the sector has grappled with bribery scandals and accusations of aggressive pricing, exemplified by Mylan’s decision to hike the price of anti-allergy injection EpiPen by 400%.

Drug firms have long defended their prices as the necessary reward for funding expensive and risky research. The value of global scale, meanwhile, was evident in their ability to quickly test vaccines and manufacture enough doses to inoculate a third of the world’s population next year. The promise by Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca to sell their treatments at cost price for the duration of the pandemic further enhances their claims to benefit society. The warm feelings extended to the stock market, where share prices of vaccine makers Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and Pfizer have outperformed the MSCI World Pharma index by an average of 5% since the beginning of the year. Moderna shares are up nearly 700% in the same period.

However, the vaccines are more than just an endorsement of Big Pharma. Academic centres like the University of Oxford’s Jenner Institute and small firms such as Germany’s BioNTech played a critical role in pioneering the medical breakthroughs, helped by a mixture of public and private funding. Governments, meanwhile, helped to finance the cost of testing and manufacturing, and pre-ordered hundreds of millions of doses without knowing whether the vaccines would be effective.

Such public support has emboldened campaigners who argue governments should take a greater slice of pharma companies’ earnings, perhaps by claiming a share of new drug patents. The glow of their vaccine triumph may allow Big Pharma companies to shrug off such demands for a while. But U.S. drug prices rose 60% in the 10 years to 2018, according to the American Medical Association. Pressure to bring them down will soon return.

BREAKINGVIEWS

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Will coronavirus pandemic change Big Pharma's long-term focus?

Many leading pharmaceutical companies have focused on developing cancer medication. A fresh study by EY* looks at whether some may find virus research an even more lucrative business model in the future.



A study published by global consultancy EY on Monday shows that last year the bulk of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies focused on the development of anti-cancer drugs.

A total of 2,586 active agents were reported to be in the stage of clinical development, while "only" 605 anti-virus agents reached the same phase in 2019.
During the same time, cancer-related activities secured the biggest revenues for Big Pharma. Companies were able to boost their turnover by one-fifth last year to €174 billion ($196 billion), also driven by big blockbuster drugs generating revenues of at least $1 billion each.

Medication for the treatment of infections accounted for "only" €46 billion in revenues in 2019 marking a 5.1% increase in turnover year on year, EY notes.
"It's to be expected that research on infections and antibiotic resistance will move more into the focus of pharmaceutical companies going forward against the backdrop of the current coronavirus pandemic," says Siegfried Bialojan, head of the EY Life Science Center in Mannheim, Germany.

"At the same time, the largest pharmaceutical firms are unlikely to stop their long-term programs and will hardly focus solely on COVID-19." Bialojan says the reason for this is simple. "Pandemics are not predictable as a business factor, because you just don't know when and in which form they may occur."

M&A activities down

But COVID-19 has already had a different impact on the pharma sector. The EY study shows that many planned mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have been suspended. "Companies are playing for time and want to see what the situation will be like after the summer months," says Alexander Nuyken, EY's head of Life Science, Transaction Advisory for Europe, Middle East, India & Africa (EMEIA region).

"There are too many imponderables right now and too much insecurity, meaning that potential buyers and sellers really don't see eye to eye on the transaction price."

Nuyken adds, though, that in the long term pharmaceutical companies can learn a lot and profit from the current coronavirus crisis and rethink their in-house processes. He adds it's of utmost importance to increase the immediate availability and processing of health-related data "so as to ensure that we can better help patients and provide help more quickly."


Researchers the world over have been bending over backward to develop an effective vaccine to be used against COVID-19

The power of innovation

The life science segment has been able to unleash its full innovative potential in the current coronavirus crisis, EY notes. Within a very short time span it has managed to present over 160 potential vaccines and over 240 therapeutic active agents. EY also points to some 700 tests that Big Pharma had developed by the beginning of June this year — some of them have already been brought to market.

"There can be no doubt that for the company that wins the race for an approved anti-coronavirus vaccine, it'll be a game changer," says Nuyken. He warns, though, that there's still a long way to go and that there's no guarantee that a really safe and effective vaccine for all will be found in the end.

"We estimate that 97% of the vaccines being tested right now will not be approved, meaning that a lot of companies will just have burned big amounts of R&D money at the end of the day."

Investment drive before pandemic

EY points out that the world's largest pharmaceutical companies logged a marked uptick in investment activities in 2019, following a slump a year earlier.

The 21 biggest firms analyzed by the consultancy on aggregate increased their R&D investments by over 14% after an almost 2% dip in 2018. Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) rose by 11.9% last year — a solid improvement from the 3.2% in negative territory a year earlier.

Overall revenues in 2019 increased by 12.3%, with the biggest winner among those scrutinized being Takeda, which after its takeover of Shire booked revenues of €25.8 billion, while the year before it had bought in €15.6 billion.
Germany's top pharma companies were part of the success story. EY says Bayer's EBIT surged by a staggering 53% last year while Boehringer Ingelheim saw its pre-tax earnings rise by 31%. Merck logged a 28% improvement in EBIT earnings year on year.

"The year before the coronavirus struck was a positive one for the pharma industry," says Gerd Stürz, head of Life Sciences, Health and Chemicals for Germany, Switzerland and Austria at EY. He notes that companies' increased willingness to invest in innovation and flexible work processes in 2019 are now paying off in the current crisis.


Watch Video https://p.dw.com/p/3dlh5

Vaccine efforts a mix of competition and cooperation

Date 15.06.2020
Author Hardy Graupner
Related Subjects Coronavirus
Keywords pharmaceutical industry, big pharma, coronavirus, COVID-19, oncology, strategy, EY

*EY IS ACCOUNTING FIRM ERNST & YOUNG RE-BRANDED