SUMMARY: The pharma industry is responsible for its low ratings. The industry has done nothing to acknowledge that they are listening to the concerns of the public and continues to focus on one thing: profits.
Big Pharma
- Big Pharma is evading culpability for the crisis of rising prescription drug prices by point the finger at others, namely pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs).
- Many drugs receive no rebates at all, including 89 percent of Medicare Part D prescriptions. For new drugs, where the price tag can run into the hundreds of thousands a year, rebates are rarely offered because there is no direct competition in the space.
- Putting profits before people is what big Pharma does. Brand name drug makers have hiked the prices of their products at 10 times the rate of inflation over the last five years.
- Drugmakers historically have blamed higher prices on the costs of research and development but didn’t use
and of the $7 billion tax benefit to increase R&D.
- Republicans have indicated that they are willing to work with democrats on drug pricing initiatives.
- Drug companies are focusing lobbying efforts to use a possible lame-duck session of Congress to peel back a legislative loss they suffered earlier this year.
- Pharma is making a lobbying push to roll back seniors’ drug discounts at a time when they are reporting near record profits.
- So far in 2018, PhRMA spent more than $20 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and was the third-largest spender.
POST SUMMARY: Tow stories in the media last week, including a cover story in Newsweek, take aim at pharma. While there is some good reporting most of the content continues to ignore how drugs are marketed today.
POST SUMMARY: The easiest way to make a small biotech company less competitive is to transform the organization yo big pharma with recycled pharma people and a culture of meetings to spread decision making to employees whose self interests outweigh patients’ needs.