“Let’s be clear: I will not back down. » Faced with the rebellion of pharmaceutical laboratories, the American president, Joe Biden, displayed his determination, Friday August 29. “There is no reason Americans should be forced to pay more than any developed country for life-saving drugs, just to line the pockets of Big Pharma”continues firmly the tenant of the White House.
A few hours earlier, the Ministry of Health unveiled the list of the first ten drugs which will soon be the subject of downward price negotiations between pharmaceutical companies and Medicare, the federal health insurance system for the over 65s. years, which covers some 65 million Americans. Expected for several months, the announcement was hardly surprising.
It has nevertheless aroused strong criticism from laboratories, which, until now, have enjoyed complete freedom in setting the prices of their treatments in the United States. The boss of the national lobby pharmaceutical industry, Stephen Ubl, denounced “a rushed process”focused on short-term political gain, predicting “significant negative consequences long after the departure » of the administration in place.
Judicial counter-offensive
Since the promulgation of the Inflation Reduction Act in August 2022, one part of which plans to authorize Medicare to negotiate the price of certain expensive treatments, drug manufacturers have spared no effort to bury the measure, without however succeeding to rally public opinion.
According to a survey published on August 28 by the non-profit organization West Health, 83% of the population would support it. It must be said that the American health system, by leaving control to pharmaceutical laboratories and their intermediaries, has led to a local singularity: Americans pay more for their drugs than in any other country in the world. As a result, many of them give up seeking treatment.
Reluctant to trim their profits on this juicy market – the United States represents 40% of drug sales worldwide – the laboratories finally launched this summer a counter-offensive on the legal front. The American MSD (called Merck in the United States) was the first to open the ball in court, before being imitated by other big names in the industry, including Johnson & Johnson, Bristol Myers Squibb, Astellas , AstraZeneca and Novartis. But, for the first time in the land of Big Pharma, the pharmaceutical companies could suffer a major defeat.
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