United States – President Joe Biden, in a White House event with US Senator Bernie Sanders on Wednesday, told the nation that he and the Senate have been fighting against high prescription drug prices and that some companies have cut the prices of inhalers for asthma patients.
Biden and Sanders Collaborates
Biden maintained that the explanation is that drugs made by the same pharmaceutical company are sold in the US for at least two to three times higher than in other developed countries, like Canada, Italy, and France. The firm was nameless, as reported by Reuters.
The argument about high prescription drug prices and the fact that the drug companies charge higher prices all over the globe than anywhere else in the world continues. According to Biden, the administration would not have been possible to deal with the pharmaceutical industry without Sanders’s support.
Biden Administration’s Healthcare Agenda
Biden, a Democrat, has promised to be ready to deal with the issue of lowering healthcare costs as a main thrust of his 2024 reelection campaign. Sanders, as the chairman of the Senate U.S. health panel, has started the process of piercing the pharma companies with letters and hearings, that he considers a preliminary stage towards making prices of drugs lower.
Alex Schriver, a representative of PhRMA, the business group, responded by stressing that the meeting was probably another aspect of the conflicts between patients and their medicines.
“When companies have introduced lower-priced versions of their medicines, insurers, and PBMs (pharmacy benefit managers) have refused to cover them because they make less money,” Schriver said.
According to Biden, he wants to discuss 25% off of 50 medicines and place a number on the price of Americans, which shouldn’t go over USD 2000 per year.
For example, the president stated that asthma was the most frequently occurring respiratory disease affecting 27 million Americans, including 4 million children. A dose of asthma medicine costs less than USD 5, and that cost has remained the same, but drug companies have increased the price to up to eight times the original cost.
One UK company sells asthma inhalers at USD 49, but it sells the same drugs at a whopping rate of USD 645 to American consumers, Biden said without giving the company name.
“It’s time drug companies pay rebates when they increase prices faster than inflation,” he said.
Sanders and members of Congress slammed the four companies producing inhalers in the United States—AstraZeneca (AZN.L), Boehringer, Teva Pharmaceuticals (TEVA.TA), and GSK (GSK.L)—in January for very high prices compared to other countries.
Collaboration Yields Results in Inhaler Cost Reduction
In March, three of the four companies opted to cap a USD 5 price tag for each inhaler.
“Despite all that we have accomplished up to now, it is not enough. Much more needs to be done,” Sanders said of lowering prescription drug costs. “This is an issue that we must, must get a handle on.”
The Biden administration has wanted to increase competition to drive down the cost of inhalers by challenging the patents, which have been described as falsely claimed.
Legislative Actions and Future Plans
Moreover, the president emphasized that 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act implemented a cap of USD 35 on insulin costs. He also went further to increase the number of Medicare drugs the federal government can negotiate with pharmaceutical companies from 10 to 50.
Indeed, the year 2022 Inflation Reduction Act permits Medicare to bargain the cost of expensive drugs traditionally geared towards the federal healthcare insurance program that covers 65 years old and older Americans and the disabled and some other group of the population, as reported by Reuters.
Though he caucuses with the Democrats, Sanders is one of the Senate’s three independents.