WASHINGTON
- June 30 - U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone, responding to the inflated
prices of life-saving prescription drugs, introduced an amendment to the
Labor-HHS Appropriations bill which would require the National Institutes of
Health (NIH) to insure that drugs developed at taxpayer expense are provided to
the public on reasonable terms. The Wellstone amendment, supported by Senators
Johnson and Levin, and recently passed in the House thanks to the leadership of
Rep. Bernie Sanders, would make pharmaceutical companies who negotiate
agreements with the NIH to develop and market drugs using taxpayer-funded R&D,
to enter an agreement to sell those drugs at reasonable prices. The measure
would end the federal government’s give-away of billions of dollars worth of
taxpayer-financed intellectual property to huge, profitable pharmaceutical
conglomerates, while these same corporations price the life-saving drugs beyond
the reach of seniors and working families.
“I do not think this is unreasonable, from the point of view of ordinary
Americans, people who pay the taxes and support our government, and who feel
ripped off by the prices today. If we are going to put our tax-payer dollars
into the research and into the support, and then the pharmaceuticals companies
are going to get the patent, at a very minimum, they ought to be willing to sell
the drug to the people in our country at a reasonable price, to be defined by
the Secretary of Health and Human Services. That’s what this amendment says.
It’s all about corporate welfare at its worst, its all about being there for
consumers, its all about ensuring people that their tax-payer dollars are
contributing to some research that in turn will contribute affordable
prescription drugs for themselves, their parents and their children,” Wellstone
said.
The National Institutes of Health are the crown jewel of American science,
producing life-saving drugs of enormous value to our nation and the world. From
1955 to 1992, for example, 92% of drugs approved by the FDA to treat cancer were
researched and developed by the NIH.
Currently, once NIH has successfully developed a new drug, funded by U.S.
taxpayers, it signs over monopoly commercial rights to big pharmaceutical
companies which can – and do – charge American consumers as much as they want.
In the case of Levamisole, a profitable pharmaceutical took exclusive rights to
a drug with NIH-discovered anti-colon cancer properties and charged consumers
over one hundred times its cost. Tamoxifen, a breast cancer drug, which was the
product of 140 NIH clinical trials, is sold to American consumers for $214,
while selling in Canada for $34.
The Wellstone amendment would require price agreements which are ‘reasonable’ be
included by the NIH in licensing agreements with pharmaceutical companies for
patented drugs based on in-house NIH research; information derived form animal
tests or human clinical trials that are conducted by the Department of Health
and Human Services with respect to a drug; and agreements stemming from
cooperative research and development agreements pertaining to a drug between the
NIH and another entity, but excluding such agreements with universities.
“Don’t let the pharmaceutical lobby and its PR machine mislead you,” Wellstone
told fellow senators. “This amendment does not establish a healthcare price
control scheme – it simply re-instates the Bush administration’s reasonable
pricing clause which was the law from 1989-1995. American taxpayers should get
a return on their investment, not the highest drug prices in the world.”
Last year, the cost of prescription drugs skyrocketed by an estimated 17%. This
year, drug
costs are expected to rise another 18%.
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