Pharma Bigs Meet To Plot Their Obama Strategy
28 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // November 20th, 2008 // 8:37 am
Major drug makers want their voices heard as Democrats, traditionally critics of the industry, start crafting plans to expand health insurance coverage and cut the escalating costs of care. And so pharma is actively promoting the success of Medicare’s prescription drug coverage and meds to save money in the long run, Reuters writes.
“We need first a seat at the table,” Fred Hassan, Schering-Plough’s ceo, tells the news service. And so pharma execs are meeting in Washington this week at a gathering of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations. Hassan, the group’s current president, says the location was chosen in recognition of the coming political changes.
The backdrop: President-elect Barack Obama and other Democrats, who expanded their majority in Congress, want to overhaul the nation’s health-care system and have attacked drugmakers for high prices, excessive ads and handling of side effects. Not coincidentally, pharma shifted its political giving recently as Democrats gained more power in Washington (look here).
Pharma now has “extremely good connections on both sides of the aisle. I have personally been called by senior leaders on the Democrat side asking for advice and help, and that’s a sign of the new industry versus the old industry,” Hassan tells Reuters. Says Bayer HealthCare ceo Arthur Higgins: “we’re working very hard to build bridges…all we’re asking for is we have some points to make. You don’t have to accept those points, but we just ask you to listen. That’s the beginning of a dialogue.”
At the same time, though, the PhRMA trade group is preparing a multimillion-dollar public relations campaign to tout the importance of free-market health care and undercut an expected push by the Obama administration for price controls. (Speak softly and advertise a big stick?)
Wider health insurance coverage could increase use of medicines, but companies are likely to face pressure to lower prices. Drugmakers are prepared to be part of the savings but insurers and other players need to pitch in, according to Merck ceo Dick Clark. “I think we all have to contribute. I don’t think it’s fair to say that everyone else has to contribute and pharma doesn’t. I think we all have to come up with the ways of helping,” Clark told the Reuters Health Care summit.
Drugmakers are touting the success of Medicare’s Part D prescription drug benefits as a model of an efficient government partnership with industry, Reuters writes. The program greatly expanded access to medications, and surveys show satisfaction rates above 90 percent, Hassan says. Costs are sharply lower than originally projected.
“It’s been shown that every sector can become more efficient in terms of competitiveness, and that’s been validated by the Part D program, where the results have been very strong and very surprising,” he tels Reuters, adding that greater use of meds also can save money, such as by getting patients to stick with diabetes medications and avoid costly complications. “You might wind up costing the system a lot less.”
Insider
LOL
Go Fred Go!
The Sarah Palin of Big Pharma!!
PBurns
Pharma and PhRMA have pumped scores and scores of millions of dollars into phony astro-turf front groups and partisan direct mail factories like the United Seniors Association and “payola politics” groups like Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform. Now they think they can continue to fund these phony partisan fear factories AND have a seat at the public policy table?
Good luck with that!
P.
Condor
As ever — Great stuff, here, Ed! — [I'll see ya' tomorrow in Philly!]
Charm Offensive in High Dungeon!
Never mind that only a couple of months ago, CEO Hassan was complaining — on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, no less — that the FDA was so capricious and mean, there was “no way to know” how to get an NDA approved. . . . Uh-huh.
But now — Geez, he’s the “go-to guy” with lots of great “inisde the beltway” DC connects — even to those once-pesky Democrats!
HILARIOUS(!) — if it weren’t so plainly false — more, here:
http://shearlingsplowed.blogspot.com/2008/11/captains-of-pharma-meet-in-nyc-begin.html
Namaste
BPW
Fred Hassan leading the charge? What a complete joke! He’s a lame duck at his own company and now he’s supposed to lead this “elite” group. maybe this will be his “retirement” job.
Ronbo
Just don’t forget to leave the pvt jets home and fly coach ;-) ……
jbz
jets, try helicopters for VP’s at Pfizer..
Justice in MI
In general, pharma has been enormously successful in wooing both parties. It will be interesting to see whether there is, in any significant way, change we can believe in.
Just A Thought
ummmm:
(Speak softly and advertise a big stick?)
Haha, no comment.
Margaret
No seat at the table, Pharma. Crooked clinical trials, hidden lethal side effects, no criminal trial consequences; basically top dollar for junk medicine. 100,000 dead a year. Who would let you sit, anywhere, except perhaps in a Piper Cub. Along with the doctors that you buy.
Pharma Newbie
Pretty brutal, just to paraphrase all pharma companies are evil. Regardless of all of the drugs that help save lives or improve peoples quality of life. Not to mention the life saving trials we conduct at our own expense. Maybe I am naive, but I think we make a nice contribution to society as a whole. We have our issues, but the world is better with us in it.
Compliance Analyst
Newbie, get used to these sorts of diatribes. No matter the good that any company does, there is always someone that will extol the evils of our business. Just remember that you get to help people live longer lives so they have more time to complain.
Ronbo
Just don’t forget to leave the pvt jets home and fly coach ;-) ……
Salmon
No person and no business is all good or all evil.
Having seen the worst of Pharma up close and personal and the damage done I certainly understand the intense sentiments against Pharma. However it is true that pharma has brought improvements in health in the past. We are now in a phase where growth is difficult and so cutting corners with peoples lives often takes precedence.
I’ve wondered if generics accelerated this and if a longer market protection period and negotiated prices would have helped. Then I found quotes from Senator Kefauer from the 60’s complaining about Pharma abusing their exclsivity and gouging on prices.
People in pharmaceutical companies frequently only see one small part of the picture. Some in a company do know the problems but most don’t, so please don’t dismiss the possibility that your drugs may be doing more harm than good. The question is how do we move forward without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Salmon
Compliance Analyst
I definitely see the good and bad in the industry. I know some companies skirt the line between what is ethical and what is unethical. I like to think my company makes medications that help and even save lives. I know that our company donates doses of an anti-AIDs drug to Africa, but you never see that splashed on the headlines. You see people saying that is not enough….
The nice thing with my position is I get to see many different sides of our company. I know it is not all rainbows and unicorns. Drugs get rushed through clinical trials and many times it is not known the long term effect on a body. Then, depending on who is reporting the data, that data can be used either way to make it look like the drug is bad for people or a “miracle” drug. Drugs also work differently in different people. Take my sister for example….she has severe CP. She gets injection of botox to help her legs bend better. When I worked for a clinical research think tank on botox a long time ago, it was in the process of being used for cosmetic work (paraylsis of muscles). Funny how things work.
I see the evil and the good in our industry, but I also believe the medications that I work around everyday are overall positive for the well being of my family, friends, and neighbors. I wouldn’t be doing what I do if I thought I was hurting someone.
Compliance Analyst
You never hear the good from the people that drugs have helped…only the bad and ugly.
Lisa Van S
Compliance, ….. Really, care to share those warm and fuzzy success stories. Thought they would be ramapnt on this sight. All we see are personal attacks against folks who were harmed by pharma. The only success stories we here are from those who are mentally ill, or their advocacy groups who rcve substatantial contributions from the pharma industry!!!
Salmon
Yes you do hear the good.
The problem has been that when there are serious problems rather than listen and accept the problems Pharmaceutical companies have ocvered up and often attacked and destroyed peoples lives. It is this sort of behavior that has engendered such animosity.
I feel for all the people in the industry who try to do the right thing and those who are being laid off now through no fault of their own. Unfortunately it’s a high risk business. I used to not appreciate the sales force, but now I read cafepharma and see the animosity they have towards their own companies and the unethical activites they have to deal with every day. It’s a tough life in pharma. Just as it’s extremely tough for those in discovery with the pressure to come up with something and the difficulting in finding a molecule that doesn’t have something that will kill it. It’s also tough for the toxicologists. Trying to schedule a cage for animals for drug x so they can remain on schedule, and then getting harassed because they’re the rate limiting step for filing when you simply can’t do a 2 year carcinogenicity study in less than 2 years. I can go on. But no matter what we as health professionals have to think that it’s the patient who comes first. Unfortunately I’ve seen too much of it’s a business first and the customer (not patient) is only a means to make a buck.
I disagree with you about not knowing about long term toxicities. When you’ve seen as many drugs as I have you realize that you see the same things time and time again in preclinical and the basic pharmacology studies that can tell you what the long term toxicities are. I’ve gotten to the point where I can often look at the structures and tell. Companies know these signals and they make decisions on whether they want to take the chance or not, then they intentionally design clinical trials in such a way as to minimize the chance of seeing something that they expect of based on what they see in phase I or with other drugs in the series know will be a problem later. If this weren’t the case then we really wouldn’t be hearing so much about preemption.
Justice in MI
I would add that there have been some candid and searching discussions here about the industry that were considered both fair and informative by almost all of those involved.
I think it is accurate to say that both “insiders” and “outsiders” agree that there was been a change over the past dozen years ago - both in public perception of the industry and, in fact, in ethical practice. Obviously, this does not negate the tremendous good the industry does nor does it describe the vast majority of people who work within it.
The primary areas of “pushing the ethical envelope” that appear to have changed is the extent and “creativity” of off-label promotion, cat-and-mouse marketing strategy in general (do it until DDMAC writes us a warning letter), and more cat-and-mouse compliance with an FDA that is willing to tango.
Lisa Van S
Salmon,
Give me a break!! You cite cafe pharma as a reliable source,.A potty mouth internet site. I sure hope you are not an individual who treats children,.. Wow that can be catostrophic!!
Compliance Analyst
Lisa…for the most part you don’t hear the success stories is because those people don’t go out looking to counter the people that simply bad mouth. When people find out what they do I get all sorts of reaction. The best reaction I got from one of the guys in my grandma’s nursing home was a guy giving me a hug for a COPD drug that he was taking that allowed him to “enjoy his last few years”.
Salmon…I spent my first few years doing clinical (animal models) and saw the toxicity as well. But people react to that toxicity differently. We all know smoking causes cancer, but my grandparents were 2 pack a day smokers and never developed lung cancer. People react to each drug differently. I do think companies send drugs to market a little too fast sometimes and pick and choose the data.
We go through our cGMP training each year and the final thought that we always leave with our people is that we don’t work for the company, we work for the people that take our medications every day. In the long run it doesn’t make sense for our company to kill off or cripple the people we make medication for.
Lisa Van S
Justice
Im a bit curious, are you a psychiatrist, or a psychologist, seeking to obtain prescribing priviledges?.. If so, Maybe you have something to gain or loose if preemption succeeds.
Lisa Van S
Compliance,.. Are you sure you want to use a nursing home as a warm and fuzzy experience. You cite Grandparents,.. and conversations. Were you ever given the responsibility, to make medical authority decisions on behalf of an elderly patient? COPD,.. is that all you have? Your comment is not just diturbing!.. Its irresponsible. Get back to me when you mature a bit..
Justice in MI
Lisa - Please ask your question directly - what, precisely, are your suspicions? Spell them out.
In any event, I am a psychologist, I do not rx, and my work now is as a university prof rather than a clinician in any case.
Do I have something to gain or lose, besides rights?
Jaynesday
Compliance Analyst -
I think you are correct that we do focus on the bad and forgo the good. Some of us have been labeled anti pharma because of that. But I don’t know that any of us would ever say we can do without pharma. We also know that some of the best and brightest in the world work for the industry. So for me at least please forgive me if I come off too strong against pharma.
On the other hand I don’t think that pharma should ever excuse bad behavior by saying - we do much good. I hope that they would at least acknowledge that they can do better, that just OK is not good enough, that one person’s death warrants some investigation and improvement or that statistical acceptability doesn’t warrant success. Slow down a little bit and forgo some profit for more care for the consumer. We are not your adversary we are your livelihood.
Compliance Analyst
Lista…my grandma was in a nursing home for many, many years, and it was not a warm and happy experience to see my grandma in a debilitating state from strokes. I spent time with plenty of people that have had positive experience from the work that you do is gratifying. I can gather that you don’t particularly like pharmaceutical companies or apparently the people that work for them, but making personal attacks on my “maturity” is a little inane since you know nothing about me.
You are right that I have never had to make the medical decisions for someone else, but will in the near future with the birth of my first child. I have been lucky to not have had to decide the care of my parents, sisters, or grandparents. I don’t relish the thought and don’t think it makes me less “mature” for not having to do that.
Salmon
What can I say to these posts. It’s not all black or white. Yet some people don’t want to understand the nuances and label everything that pharma does as bad. Even a bad drug may be good for some people under the right conditions.
Lisa I know what CafePharma is like but if you want to learn you need to listen to the opinions of those who you disagree with. Besides there are alot of other posts that expose corrupt aspects of the Pharmaceutical Industry that would not be available to me otherwise.
No drug is safe and even if the drugs that your child received had been labeled, depending on the frequency and severity of the AE it still may have been acceptable for a limited number of cases for illnesses where the alternative is worse. However to determine this you need all the information. Which companies tend to withhold and FDA tends to coverup. In spite of this the prescriber may need to be held accountable for the misdiagnosis and not realizing there was a drug induced injury.
Lisa I have had to make medical decisions for children and let me say the preventable drug toxicities I have seen are way worse than anything that happened to you child.
Ex-Pharma Rep
As an ex-Pharma rep who worked in the industry for a long time, I can tell you that not all that Pharma does is bad. They actually do a lot of good too. The problem is, like the banking industry, the CEOs/Execs have gotten greedy at the expense of the consumers and the little people who work for the company. The Board of Directors and Senior Management are in cahoots with one another. Sr. Management continues to get big raises and bonuses (an 80% raise for one CEO in 2007), while the consumer pays more and the worker bees get laid off. The rich keep getting richer and well, you obviously know that everyone else is getting poorer (and laid off). Pharma Execs need to be more regulated just like the banking industry. They are just completely out of touch with the real world (doctors, patients, employees), and need some checks and balances in the system to wake them up.
Justice in MI
This a kind of follow to Jaynesday’s comment.
I think it is precisely because of the all the good that pharma does - and the responsibility that goes with it - that makes so many furious when trust is genuinely betrayed. I know that outrage is shared by many in industry as well, both because of principle and because of what it does to public images/stereoypes of what _they_ do as a group. They are obviously right to be furious on both counts.
It is also true that, in some instances, the good _has_ been used by some industry spokespeople as a kind of “pass” for what is not so good.