Hillary Clinton Goes After Pharmaceutical Industry Abuses in New Ad

Last week, the Internet blew up over the greed of pharma companies and the cost of life-improving and life-saving medicines.

Patients were angry, and politicians were outraged.

Commentator: He may be lowering it after Hillary Clinton blasted him out of the water.

However, there’s the silver lining: People are talking about drug prices.

Not surprisingly, the staggering price increases – having become the subject of widespread attention during a heated lead-up to the 2016 presidential election – have morphed into a headline political issue, particularly within the Democratic Party.

For example, famous investor Bob Goldfarb, when asked about Valeant’s price hikes (Isuprel hiked by 5x to $1342 per dose) of the drugs acquired from Marathon, said that they were tail products that would go out of patent in a couple of years. Profits from successful medicines are also used to fund future research.

For Better Or For Worse?

Economically, large parts of this plan make little sense.

What Shkreli did was unusual, for a number of reasons. It underscores the need for an overhaul in the way pharmaceutical prices are set in this country. In the beginning, The New York Times reported about the price hike and it led to anger among public. “And there are the big pharmaceutical companies, which tend to do everything from basic research to sales”.

While Shkreli was caught and guilt-tripped into reconciling his grievous mistake, what about all of the pharmaceutical companies and CEOs who get away with hiking the costs of prescription drugs and access to medical assistance on a daily basis? Shkreli seems to care more about sustaining his company as opposed to helping patients suffering from toxoplasmosis, as he stated $750 per tablet is a “more appropriate price for Daraprim“.

The spend on insulin and other diabetes medications is projected to rise 18.3 percent over the next three years – a rate that’s 60 times greater than the income growth rate of 0.3 percent across all households.

In a new television ad released Monday, Clinton’s campaign highlights how the former secretary of state went after Turing and suggests she contributed to Shkreli’s decision to lower the price. Overall drug costs at mail-order pharmacies were 16 percent lower than retail pharmacies across all drugs, according to a 2013 analysis by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

More recently, a company called Rodelis Therapeutics acquired a drug called Cycloserine, used to treat tuberculosis.

But that only brings up more questions.

We live in a society where being sick for months is more bearable than paying thousands of dollars for medical care. No surprise that in India there are many suppliers. But after GlaxoSmithKline sold the drug in 2010, its price has steadily increased.

Alex Tabarrok, writing for the website Marginal Revolution, notes the US should have as vigorous a market in generic pharmaceuticals as does India or Europe. But the Drug Quality and Security Act outlawed this and forces hospitals to buy generic combinations from companies.

But an easier FDA approval process alone will not solve the problem either. We’re an industry fraught with constant boosting of prices, ostensibly to fuel R&D – but the numbers are hard to reconcile. How many people actually need treatment with these drugs? In generics, a few are already voicing concerns about Teva potentially becoming a monopoly. There are countless drugs that sit on pharmaceutical company shelves – either paused in the development process or simply too unprofitable to produce.

HRC: I’m announcing a detailed plan to crack down on these abuses.

Costs rose 150 percent for six popular, brand-name diabetes drugs in the past five years. But there is hope.