Everyone, it seems, has issues with big pharma. From obscene profits to outrageous compensation for CEOs pharma has seems to have the attitude of a big corporation who doesn’t care. The question that everyone seems to be avoiding is “can pharma serve both Wall Street and patients?”.
Pharma CEO’s
QUICK READ:
- Pharma CEOs, because of compensation, put shareholders first at the expense of patients.
- AbbVie’s CEO is compensated based on Humira’s patent protection.
- Wall Street doesn’t really understand the drug development process and puts too much emphasis on short term profits.
- Some forward-thinking CEOs are trying to implement change within their organizations but they can’t do it alone.
SUMMARY: Via Business Insider “CEOs have for decades chanted the mantra of shareholder supremacy and placed cost-cutting and short-term profits above all else. That mindset, however, just might be changing.” It might be changing in other industries but within pharma, the mindset is still “short term balance sheet”.
SUMMARY: Via STAT news “top pharmaceutical CEOs have targeted a small group of Republican senators with roughly $200,000 in campaign donations in the past year”. No matter what you read it’s about sales and Wall Street, not patients.
- Pharmacy benefit managers said rebates paid by drug companies to PBMs, sometimes called “middlemen,” are “not secret or hidden payments”
- Executives blamed high drug prices on the drugmakers and their pursuit of profits.
- U.S. Healthcare Spending Reaches $420M Per Hour, On Track to Hit $12 Trillion by 2040.
- 62 health care CEOs made a combined $1.1 billion in 2018 when calculating the actual value of cashed-out stock.
- In the meantime Republicans are warning drug companies not to cooperate with probes into drug pricing.
IN SUMMARY: When the list price of a drug goes up but the net price goes down there is something dreadfully wrong with our healthcare system. The hearings, before Congress yesterday, were meant to convey to voters that “we’re doing something” but patients are not likely to see any benefits from ANY Congressional hearings until the SYSTEM is questioned.
KEY IDEA: Today some pharma CEO’s will go to Congressional Hill to answer questions about high drug prices. Politicians are conducting this charade because they want to give voters the idea that “they care” and that they are doing something. What won’t be discussed are the real reasons American healthcare is the most expensive in the world with poor results.