In the United States, the price of Revlimid, a brand against brand cancer, has increased for two decades. Now it is sold for almost $ 1,000 per pill. In Europe, the price has been consistently lower in some countries by two thirds.
I started Reports on Revlimid After the medication prescribed me after a diagnosis of multiple myeloma, incurable blood cancer. Stunned by the high price, I discovered that the drug manufacturer, Cellgene, had used Revlimid as his own personal bank for more than a decade, increasing the price in the US. Uu. Every time he said convenience.
Even with lower prices in Europe, Cell -Made still got profits there, a former executive told Congress. That joined the more than $ 21 billion in net earnings that the company obtained after Revlimid was introduced in 2005.
Of course, Revlimid is not the only medication with a price disparity. Americans pay more generally for prescribed medications than people in other rich countries. And the costs continue to rise, assess patients with paralyzing debt or forcing them to choose between filling recipes or buying groceries. So why do we pay much more? And is something about it?
In most other rich countries, governments establish a unique price for a medicine that is common based on the analysis of the therapeutic benefit of medicine and what other countries pay. In the US, pharmaceutical companies determine what to charge for their products with few reintinations. Insurance companies can refuse to cover a medication to try to negotiate a lower price, but for some diseases such as cancer, that represents a risk of public reaction. Cancer is a “very political charged disease,” said Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, a professor at Harvard’s Faculty of Medicine who studies prices and the regulation of medicines. Some states also demand that insurers cover certain cancer medications.
Pharmaceutical companies have constantly argued that the prices of American medicines reflect the cost of research and development. Americans can pay more, but also benefit from having first -line access to avant -garde treatments. (Since then, Celgene has been acquired by Bristol Myers Squibb, which says that its price for Revlimid, which is in the United States last year by 7%, “reflects the continuous clinical benefit that Revlimid contributes to patients, together with”))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Dr. Hagop Kantarjian, a specialist in leukemia at the MD Anderson Cancer Center that studies the prices of medicines, said that pharmaceutical companies often exaggerate the cost of developing drugs and that many drug discoveries originate in the hospital and the academic financed through the government. The funds of the National Health Institutes of the United States contributed to all except two of the 356 medications approved by the Food and Medicines Administration from 2010 to 2019, according to a study by the University of Bentley. Companies do not spend all their profits in innovation: the 14 largest drug partners in the world spent more in repurchases of shares and dividend payments to investors than in research and development, according to an analysis of 2021 for the Supervision Committee of the House of Representatives of the United States.
A possible solution to reduce costs: link US prices with what drug manufacturers charge in other rich countries. The Congress Budget Office base Last year, that would have the greatest impact on reducing the costs of seven proposals he studies. It is an idea with bipartisan support.
Sens. Josh Hawley, R-mo., And Peter Welch, D-Vt., Presented a bill this week That would penalize the pharmaceutical companies that sell their drugs at higher prices than the average prices in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and the United Kingdom. The companies that sell above the average would face civil sanctions equal to 10 times the difference between the list price of the United States and the average price in those other countries.
President Donald Trump has advocated similar actions. Duration your first term, Hey affair An executive order that orders the Medicare program to use a “most favored nation” approach to pay drugs. Later, the Administration developed a rule that ordered Medicare to select the lowest price of a basket of similar countries and make the maximum amount that the agency would pay for 50 medications administered by doctors. A court blocked The rule of being implemented in the last days of the first administration.
Now, according to information This week, the administration is pressing the plans to link the prices of Medicaid and Medicare at the lowest prices that are charged in other countries.
It opposes the prices of the United States with those in another country opposes the industry groups that say that it would leave decisions about medicines to the government instead of the doctor and patients.
“The government’s prices establishment in any way is bad for American patients,” said Alex Schriver, spokesman for pharmaceutical research and America manufacturers, an industry group. He said that efforts should focus on fixing “defects in the American system”, including the money flowing intermediaries such as pharmacy benefits managers.
Some critics also warn that the so -called international reference prices can be game And it allows foreign governments to establish Essential and the value of medicines sold in the United States
The Trump administration is expected to announce drug price plans earlier next week, according to a report. The White House did not respond to a request for comments.
