Big Pharma

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A peek at Big Pharma’s Playbook that leaves many Americans unable to afford their drugs

America’s pharmaceutical giants are suing this summer to block the federal government’s first effort at drug price regulation.

https://floridaphoenix.com/2023/08/21/a-peek-at-big-pharmas-playbook-that-leaves-many-americans-unable-to-afford-their-drugs/?

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Pharma Giant Threatens To Delay Drugs Over New Price Controls

A pharmaceutical company could slow-walk research on medicines Americans need in response to Biden’s recently enacted federal price regulations.

https://www.levernews.com/pharma-giant-threatens-to-delay-drugs-over-new-price-controls/?

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Big Pharma’s American Con

Drugmakers are charging foreigners far lower prices for medicines they want shielded from new Medicare price cuts.

https://www.levernews.com/big-pharmas-american-con/?

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How a Big Pharma Company Stalled a Potentially Lifesaving Vaccine in Pursuit of Bigger Profits

Ever since he was a medical student, Dr. Neil Martinson has confronted the horrors of tuberculosis, the world’s oldest and deadliest pandemic. For more than 30 years, patients have streamed into the South African clinics where he has worked — migrant workers, malnourished children and pregnant women with HIV — coughing up blood. Some were so emaciated, he could see their ribs. They’d breathed in the contagious bacteria from a cough on a crowded bus or in the homes of loved ones who didn’t know they had TB. Once infected, their best option was to spend months swallowing pills that often carried terrible side effects. Many died.

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-big-pharma-company-stalled-tuberculosis-vaccine-to-pursue-bigger-profits?

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Americans Paid $11 Billion To Make Drugs You Can’t Afford

As the government begins its first-ever price negotiations for a handful of medicines under Medicare, the pharmaceutical industry has launched an all-out legal and PR assault on this meager attempt to control out-of-control drug prices for the country’s most vulnerable. Big Pharma reasons that the government has no place setting prices for the drugs developed by private companies. 

https://www.levernews.com/americans-paid-11-billion-to-make-drugs-you-cant-afford/?

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Wall Street Wants To Keep Your Drug Prices High

As the Biden administration launches a long-awaited fight to lower prices of life-saving drugs developed with public funding, a formidable industry opponent of the effort has emerged: venture capital firms.

https://www.levernews.com/wall-street-wants-to-keep-your-drug-prices-high/

 

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Pharma’s Dems Are Doing Trump’s Dirty Work On Drug Prices

While President Joe Biden is using Medicare to lower the cost of a handful of overpriced drugs and wants to expand the practice to hundreds more, some of Big Pharma’s favorite Democrats are working to do the opposite. 

https://www.levernews.com/pharmas-dems-are-doing-trumps-dirty-work-on-drug-prices/?

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Pharma’s Secret Middlemen Are Poisoning Health Care

Following a lobbying blitz, Congress might punt all efforts to stop shadowy pharmacy benefit managers from inflating drug prices and killing small pharmacies.

https://www.levernews.com/pharmas-secret-middlemen-are-poisoning-health-care/

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Pfizer’s Massive Tax Dodge

The pharma giant previously received billions in federal funding and raked in huge profits, but owes nothing in 2023 income taxes thanks to legal loopholes and Trump-era tax cuts.

https://www.levernews.com/pfizers-massive-tax-dodge/?

ps:Yes lets just give these companies more tax breaks and make the middle class pay more! Thank you dt!!!

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Universities Are Making Billions Gatekeeping Your Meds

Research universities, many of them public, have joined forces with pharmaceutical companies and Wall Street firms to fight new government efforts to curtail out-of-control drug prices, saying the regulations could stifle innovation.

https://www.levernews.com/universities-are-making-billions-gatekeeping-your-meds/?

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💊 Pharma's reputation rebound

Data: Harris/Axios 100 Poll. Chart: Axios Visuals The blockbuster success of new anti-obesity drugs helped boost the corporate reputations of pharmaceutical brands, Axios' Tina Reed writes from new Axios/Harris Poll 100 survey results. Why it matters: The poll marks a rebound for pharma, which had seen its reputation decline after soaring amid the rapid development of COVID vaccines. 🖼️ The big picture: Novo Nordisk — whose Ozempic and Wegovy have become cultural and economic phenomena — is the first pharmaceutical company to crack the poll's top 30 since the start of the pandemic. The Danish drugmaker, which didn't even appear in the poll's top 100 last year, is among the least polarizing companies in the survey. Keep reading ...

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💊 Pharma's big RFK overture

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

The pharmaceutical industry is framing itself as a key partner for President Trump and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in their quest to alleviate America's chronic disease burden. The problem: Kennedy doesn't seem to be buying it, Axios Future of Health author Caitlin Owens writes. Why it matters: One of America's most powerful industries is now in the position of convincing critics that its products aren't just safe, but crucial to solving the country's diciest health problems. 🔬 Zoom in: Pharmaceutical leaders kicked off Kennedy's tenure at the helm of HHS with declarations of optimism and mutual goal-sharing. "We have a disruptor-in-chief in President Trump and a new HHS secretary — both of which are committed to overturning the status quo," PhRMA CEO Steve Ubl said in his remarks at the industry group's forum this week. "We embrace disruption because we are disruptors." Between the lines: Speakers at the forum made it clear that former President Biden was bad for the industry, while Trump has the potential to be very good. "I truly believe that the opportunities truly outweigh the risks," Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told the crowd.

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💊 Big Pharma is swamping the drain. As part of its multimillion-dollar lobbying assault, the Danish maker of Ozempic just hired two former Trump aides as lobbyists, one of whom oversaw federal health policy. The hirings come as Republicans are pushing to repeal the Medicare program that could lower the weight-loss medicine’s price. The Lever recently reported that the federal government spent more than $6 billion of taxpayer money to develop Ozempic’s active ingredient — but the price Americans pay is up to 11 times more than the world market price. 

ps:So I guess the swamp is still hanging in there? With the people that used to work with the man that claims he's getting rid of the swamp!!!!!

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Big Pharma could use tariff negotiations to keep drug prices high. This week, regulators tasked with overseeing U.S. trade policy released an official report on intellectual property rights protection and enforcement that consumer advocates are calling “a regression.” The report’s notes on pharmaceuticals focus exclusively on shielding Big Pharma abroad by stifling competition from generic competitors in other countries to line U.S. drugmakers’ pockets.

• The report, sure to play a role in tariff negotiations, comes as the pharmaceutical lobby pressures governments to allow them to corner drug markets and keep prices high, even if it means hoarding life-saving treatments.

The quiet part in writing. Despite Pharma venting to Politico this month that their influence had waned in Washington, the United States Trade Representative report is laden with industry talking points, as reported by The Capitol Forum — and it’s not subtle. “[Intellectual Property]-intensive U.S. pharmaceutical and medical device industries have expressed concerns… related to pharmaceutical innovation and market access,” reads the report. “Foreign markets that do not appropriately recognize the value of innovative medicines… undermine incentives for innovation” (read: profit motives).

Exporting expensive prescriptions across the world. The trade policy report criticizes a longtime industry bugaboo called “compulsory licensing,” in which governments can empower a generic manufacturer to make its own version of a patented product without permission from the patent owner. When a U.S. manufacturer wants to sell its drug in foreign countries, governments may seek compulsory licensing (often without ever granting it) so that generic competitors can compete. Consumer protection organization Public Citizen told The Capitol Forum that the report’s language on the threats of compulsory licensing suggests it was likely added last minute with industry influence.

Bought and paid for by PhRMA. Last year the pharmaceutical industry’s main lobbying arm, PhRMA, spent $31 million lobbying the government, including on trade and intellectual property policy, among other issues. Now, PhRMA’s going all in on lobbying the Trump administration as the industry scrambles to minimize its tariff damage.

Reported with Luke Goldstein.

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The Pharma Puppets Keeping Your Drug Prices High

At least six organizations that claim to champion patient rights have deep financial and operational ties to Big Pharma and work to advance corporate profits. These industry front groups routinely lobby in line with the pharmaceutical industry’s priorities, challenge drug price negotiations in court briefings, and promote the industry’s interests in public statements, according to new research.

https://www.levernews.com/the-pharma-puppets-keeping-your-drug-prices-high/?

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The Pharma Puppets Keeping Your Drug Prices High. Six supposed patient advocacy groups are closely linked to drugmakers and pushing industry-aligned agendas, according to a new report.