Questcor Finds Profits, at
$28,000 a Vial
NY Times, December 30, 2012
Read the article
Thanks to Andy Pollack of the NY Times for continuing to shine a light on some of the most outrageous practices of the pharmaceutical industry, aided and abetted by backwards R&D incentives, patient-harming patent policies and industry gaming of marketing rules.
The sad thing is, instead of a major effort to change these incentives and policies, we see the federal courts enshrining and protecting commercial free speech to such an extent that it threatens public health and safety by weakening rules preventing off-label marketing, and we see our international trade negotiators extending the reach of flawed intellectual property and drug pricing policies so that in the future, Big Pharma won't even have to go to the courts to keep a lock on outrageously high prices - they will just take their case to an international arbitration panel as is being done right now by Lilly in a case brought under NAFTA. State legislators do what they can but are often knocked back by legal decisions that limit their policy actions.
Indeed, the current strategy of the industry, abetted by corporate-funded policy outfits such as ALEC and the Heartland Institute, is to go after states with the temerity to regulate, say, personal and prescriber privacy in datamining, by seeking huge payouts in attorneys fees, with those judgments then used to personally attack legislators and AGs who champion such initiatives. That's what happened in Vermont and Maine this past election season, and these actions send a clear and chilling message to state policymakers: watch out, or Big Pharma will take you down. While neither Vermont AG Bill Sorrell nor Maine Representative Sharon Treat lost their elections in this case, surely legislators will be increasingly reluctant to address emerging public policy issues with this recent history as guidance. Big Pharma already has a huge role in funding election campaigns, and all that campaign cash clearly has an effect both in Washington and at the state level in limiting the zeal with which legislators tackle issues the industry would rather remain unaddressed.
NY Times, December 30, 2012
Read the article
Thanks to Andy Pollack of the NY Times for continuing to shine a light on some of the most outrageous practices of the pharmaceutical industry, aided and abetted by backwards R&D incentives, patient-harming patent policies and industry gaming of marketing rules.
The sad thing is, instead of a major effort to change these incentives and policies, we see the federal courts enshrining and protecting commercial free speech to such an extent that it threatens public health and safety by weakening rules preventing off-label marketing, and we see our international trade negotiators extending the reach of flawed intellectual property and drug pricing policies so that in the future, Big Pharma won't even have to go to the courts to keep a lock on outrageously high prices - they will just take their case to an international arbitration panel as is being done right now by Lilly in a case brought under NAFTA. State legislators do what they can but are often knocked back by legal decisions that limit their policy actions.
Indeed, the current strategy of the industry, abetted by corporate-funded policy outfits such as ALEC and the Heartland Institute, is to go after states with the temerity to regulate, say, personal and prescriber privacy in datamining, by seeking huge payouts in attorneys fees, with those judgments then used to personally attack legislators and AGs who champion such initiatives. That's what happened in Vermont and Maine this past election season, and these actions send a clear and chilling message to state policymakers: watch out, or Big Pharma will take you down. While neither Vermont AG Bill Sorrell nor Maine Representative Sharon Treat lost their elections in this case, surely legislators will be increasingly reluctant to address emerging public policy issues with this recent history as guidance. Big Pharma already has a huge role in funding election campaigns, and all that campaign cash clearly has an effect both in Washington and at the state level in limiting the zeal with which legislators tackle issues the industry would rather remain unaddressed.
