The pharmaceutical industry can engage in the unethical and sometimes illegal practices that I’ve highlighted in previous posts [1] because they have:
- Monopolistic power in the market place due to limited competition,
- An absence of government regulation, and
- Political power to block or weaken regulation and oversight due to campaign spending, lobbying, and the revolving door of personnel moving between these corporations and government regulatory positions.
The result is that the greed of the executives of these corporations is unconstrained by market place competition, government regulations, their ethics, or, in some cases, even legality. The examples presented in my previous posts have not been isolated incidents or past bad behavior that has been rectified. This behavior by the pharmaceutical corporations is an on-going pattern.
A 2010 study found that the U.S. prices of prescription drugs were, on average, double what those same drugs cost in Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. And things have only gotten worse since then. As a result, one out of five Americans was unable to afford medicines prescribed by their doctors, while the five largest drug corporations had profits of a combined $50 billion in 2015. As Bernie Sanders wrote, “people go to the doctor because they are sick, they get a diagnosis from their doctor, but they can’t afford the treatment. Then they get sicker. Does this make any sense to anyone?” [2]
As part of their price gouging strategies, drug companies will go to great lengths to block competition. For example, Allergan corporation has transferred six drug patents to the St. Regis Mohawk Indian tribe. Because the tribe is a sovereign entity, it is immune from a type of challenge to drug patents that low-cost generic drug makers sometimes use to get the right to produce a generic version of a drug. It is expected that this will become a popular strategy to delay the availability of cheaper, generic versions of drugs, unless Congress intervenes and changes the law. Allergan will pay the tribe only $15 million a year under the deal for the right to continue to sell the drugs, which had $1.4 billion in sales last year.
For a different drug, Allergan tried to avoid competition from a generic version by pulling the drug from the market and forcing patients to buy a new, more expensive version. This move was blocked by a federal appeals court. By the way, Allergan has also moved its headquarters to Ireland to avoid U.S. taxes. [3]
There is no reason to believe that the behavior of pharmaceutical corporations is going to change on its own. Clearly, the free market and competition are not going to stop it. Public outrage, negative publicity, and criticism from elected officials may blunt the worst of the behavior, but it will not stop it.
The behavior of the pharmaceutical industry (which is evident in other industries like the financial industry as well) is not the way the economy should work in a democracy. This behavior is that of a corporatocracy, where large corporations are in control of both our (supposedly free) market place and our (supposedly democratic) government.
Only strong legislation from Congress and strong leadership from regulatory agencies in the executive branch of government will stop these harmful and greedy business practices of the pharmaceutical corporations (and other large corporations). The opioid crisis and the fueling of it by illegal and irresponsible marketing of narcotic prescription drugs has made this absolutely clear.
I urge you to contact your U.S. Representative and Senators and ask them to:
- Support strong legislation to regulate the pharmaceutical industry,
- Only confirm executive branch appointees (include the Secretary of Health and Human Services) who have a clear track record of supporting strong regulation of the drug corporations, including their drug pricing and marketing of narcotics, and
- Pass legislation that not only allows, but requires, Medicare and insurance companies participating in the Affordable Care Act to negotiate drug prices with suppliers to receive the best price based on what other countries pay. A good place to start would be to ask them if they support the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Act of 2017, which would allow the government to negotiate directly with drug companies to lower drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries, much like the Veterans Health Administration and Medicaid do today.
As we approach the Congressional and state level elections of 2018, I encourage you to scrutinize and ask about candidates’ positions on these issues. Then we can elect candidates who support strong regulation of drug corporations, who will take meaningful steps to control drug prices, and who will seriously tackle the opioid crisis and the pharmaceutical industry practices that have led to it.
[1] You can go to any of the blog posts on my site and click on the categories in the right hand column to find other posts on corporate behavior or corporate power and influence to read more about unethical and illegal practices by large corporations.
[2] Sanders, B., 2016, “Our revolution: A future to believe in,” St. Martin’s Press, NY, NY. Page 327.
[3] Silverman, E., 9/19/17, “This CEO’s latest move is raiding eyebrows,” The Boston Globe
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