The drug industry is showing that even in a crisis, it can use its influence in Washington to fight off efforts to cut into its profits
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“The idea that drug companies should have free reign to set prices during an international pandemic is immoral and dangerous,” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky , who led an unsuccessful push to ensure that coronavirus treatments developed with federal emergency funding would be priced fairly and available widely, in a statement to POLITICO.
The coronavirus package — which passed the House Wednesday and the Senate Thursday — includes about $3.1 billion to develop drugs and vaccines and expand manufacturing capacity. It would also cover purchases of medical supplies for state and local health departments to beef up the Strategic National Stockpile, the largest national repository of emergency treatments. Another $300 million would help the government buy vaccines and treatments once they are approved.
Democrats initially pushed to give HHS the power to strip intellectual property protections from any vaccine or medication whose price it deemed too high, multiple sources familiar with the negotiation told POLITICO. Versions of the legislation circulating late last week included this language. But pushback from the drug industry and Republicans prompted lawmakers to strike it.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office said in a statement that the bill “protects against price-gouging of these medicines developed with taxpayer dollars by ensuring that the federal government will only pay a fair and reasonable price for coronavirus vaccines and drugs and providing HHS the authority to ensure that they are affordable in the commercial market.”
Now, Love wrote, companies will be able to “claim that anything that reduces the price reduces incentives to invest in more rapid development, and litigate that issue.”
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