New Decade, Same Pharma Greed
Statement of Steven Knievel, Access to Medicines Advocate, Public Citizen
Note: Big Pharma corporations, including Gilead, Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline, have hiked the prices of more than 250 prescription drugs as of Jan. 1. Annual and biannual price increases on existing medicines have become a standard practice of brand-name pharma corporations.
It’s a new decade, but it’s business as usual for prescription drug corporations.
Tweets and half-baked proposals from President Donald Trump are not stopping Big Pharma from price gouging consumers.
If Trump was serious about lowering drug prices, he could do so with the stroke of a pen and authorize competition. Congressional lawmakers have proposed a slew of measures that would deliver meaningful relief, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) won’t bring them to a vote, and Trump has made it clear he would veto the most impactful legislation to be advanced out of the House, H.R. 3.
The time to act is now. Patients do not have another decade to wait.