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Rep. Schakowsky Opposes Proposal to Add Billions to Prescription Drug Costs

September 22, 2015

CHICAGO – Today, Rep. Jan Schakowsky joined Katie Jordan, Secretary/Treasurer of the Illinois Alliance for Retired Americans (ARA) and Charlie Hogan, a retiree and Illinois ARA member, in opposing a proposal to exempt the pharmaceutical industry from current patent review procedures. The carveout being pushed by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) would increase out-of-pocket prescription drug costs and add billions of dollars to private insurance, Medicare, and Medicaid costs according to a report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, “The Impact of Exempting the Pharmaceutical Industry from Patent Reviews.”

Rep. Schakowsky’s statement:

For more than 30 years, I have been working for policies that make pharmaceutical prices more affordable, especially for older Americans. As medicines become more and more important for saving and extending lives, they have also become more and more expensive.

I am here today to join with the Alliance for Retired Americans to uncover a little known scheme by big PhRMA – the brand name pharmaceutical lobby – to add tens of billions of dollars to the cost of drugs – and therefore to their profits – over the next two decades.

In 2012, a bipartisan bill passed the Congress that established a process called the Inter Partes Review Process or IPR, to provide a quick and low-cost way in which patent claims can be challenged by those who would be affected.
Not surprisingly, many drug companies made dubious patent claims in order to maintain monopoly pricing, and such claims were often rejected.

Now there is a quiet move afoot in Congress to exempt the big pharmaceutical companies from being challenged on patent claims through the IPR process – this despite the fact that (1) drug prices rose 12% last year – twice the rate of medical inflation, and (2) the cost of such an exemption is projected to add to the cost borne by both the government – Medicare and Medicaid – and consumers between $73 billion and $220 billion over 20 years.

How does this scheme work? It would aid big PhRMA in preventing or delaying generics from entering the market by making small changes that don’t have anything to do with the nature of the drug itself – like claiming that monopoly protections should be extended because you can take the drug once a day – not twice a day.

I hear from constituents almost every day who can’t afford their prescription drugs or have to give up other necessities in order to take them. I just had a conversation with a pharmacist last week who told me about customers who already have to walk away without their medications. In fact, 1 in 5 patients don’t fill a prescription. Others take half the dose or take their drugs every other day.

This scheme by big PhRMA must be stopped. That will only happen if the American people become aware of it, and that is why I am so proud to join with the Illinois Alliance for Retired Americans today to unveil this plot to further raise drug prices.

Instead of acting to increase drug prices, we should act to lower them. This week, we heard a particularly outrageous example of the need. An ex-hedge fund manager buys a drug company and, overnight, raises the price of a 62-year old drug used to fight life-threatening parasitic infections from $13.50 to $750 a pill. That’s a 5000% increase – and it’s a clear signal that there is big trouble out there for anyone who needs or might need medication.

Access to affordable medicines is a real problem already, and this sneak attack will make it worse.

Issues:Health