Pharma-Backed ORPHAN Cures Provision Would Cost Seniors and Taxpayers $4.8
Billion





 



DOSE OF REALITY: BIG PHARMA PUSHES FOR POLICY TO KEEP DRUG PRICES HIGH IN
RECONCILIATION TAX BILL

Pharma-Backed ORPHAN Cures Provision Would Cost Seniors and Taxpayers $4.8
Billion



Big Pharma is at it again, working overtime to pass a policy that would cost
seniors and taxpayers billions of dollars in higher prescription drug prices as
a rider on the reconciliation tax bill being considered in Congress.



In the version of the legislation recently passed by the U.S. House, Big
Pharma was able to successfully insert a provision based on a bill called “The
Optimizing Research Progress Hope And New (ORPHAN) Cures Act.”



While purportedly meant to protect and foster pharmaceutical innovation, this
misguided legislation would help brand name drug manufacturers keep prices high
on a whole category of their products.



So, it’s little wonder a staggering 27 individual drug companies, as well as
Big Pharma’s major trade groups, BIO and PhRMA, lobbied in support of the
ORPHAN Cures Act in the first quarter of this year.



The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates this pharma-backed
policy would cost seniors and taxpayers a whopping $4.8 billion in higher
prescription drug spending.



In November 2023, JAMA Network published an analysis
<[link removed]>,
conducted by researchers affiliated with Harvard University and Brigham and
Women’s Hospital, that found Medicare spending on multi-orphan drugs — those
shielded under the ORPHAN Cures Act — was $108 billion from 2012 to 2021.



The analysis also identifies specific “high-spend” drugs with multiple orphan
drug designations, along with the manufacturers of these products — those who
may be most likely to benefit from keeping drug prices high in this category.
Among those “high-spend” drugs are a number of brand name Big Pharma giants who
also lobbied in support of the ORPHAN Cures Act policy in the first quarter of
this year, including:

* AstraZeneca - Calquence
* Novartis - Exjade
* Amgen - Nplate
* Bristol-Myers Squibb - Pomalyst, Reblozyl and Sprycel
* Takeda - Velcade
Big Pharma routinely asserts research and development (R&D) costs justify
out-of-control prescription drug prices and claims solutions to lower prices
threaten innovation. These arguments simply don’t hold up to the facts—and are
part of a Big Pharma strategy to maintain the status quo where they game the
system to block competition and keep drug prices high.



Numerous studies from medical and academic experts, government analysts and
nonprofit researchers have confirmed that Big Pharma’s egregious pricing
practices have no connection to the cost of developing a new medication or
improving a drug’s clinical value for patients.



A September 2022 JAMA Network Open analysis
<[link removed]> found
“no association” between manufacturer drug prices and investments in R&D. An
October 2022 JAMA Internal Medicinestudy
<[link removed]>
found oncology treatments are “priced based predominantly on what the market
will bear,” not effectiveness for patients. A 2021report
<[link removed]> from the
nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found, “When drug companies set
the prices of a new drug, they do so to maximize future revenues net of
manufacturing and distribution costs. A drug’s sunk R&D costs—that is, the
costs already incurred in developing that drug—do not influence its price.”



Lawmakers should reject pharma-backed policies advancing this false innovation
narrative designed to keep prescription drug prices high at the expense of
seniors and taxpayers — and remove the ORPHAN Cures Act from the reconciliation
tax bill.



Instead, Congress should advance bipartisan, market-based solutions to hold
Big Pharma accountable for their egregious pricing practices and
anti-competitive tactics, like abuse of the U.S. patent system, that keep drug
prices high for the American people.



Read more on how Big Pharma’s innovation arguments don’t hold up to scrutiny
HERE <[link removed]> and HERE
<[link removed]>
.



Read more on bipartisan, market-based solutions to hold Big Pharma accountable
HERE <[link removed]>.



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