Tag: Drug

The one-minute spot is the handiwork of the Alliance for Patient Access, a nonprofit group that gives off a consumer-friendly vibe yet is bankrolled by the powerful pharmaceutical industry. As Congress and the Trump administration aim to lower prescription drug costs, outside groups like the Alliance for Patient Access are seeking to sway the outcome. Susan Hepworth, a spokeswoman for the Alliance and Woodberry, described the nonprofit as “a national network of physicians that advocates for patient access to the medicines they prescribe.” Through the Alliance, she said, doctors “can share their perspectives about the benefits of respecting the physician-patient relationship, clinical decision making and personalized, patient-centered health care.” It’s no surprise, Hepworth said, that the group’s backers include companies that manufacture medicines. Under the Trump proposal, the ad says, “cancer treatment would be paid based on rates from countries with European-style health care, where access to new medicine is rationed and patients often wait months for care.” Tax filings for 2015 through 2017, the most recent available, show the Alliance has paid Woodberry’s consultants more than $1 million. “A nonprofit could run afoul of tax law if it is substantially benefiting a nonprofit officer’s for-profit consulting firm.” Hepworth said Woodberry is a consultancy with a division that specializes in nonprofit coalition management and that the money paid to the firm’s people represents a small amount of the Alliance’s expenditures for those years. The Alliance “files all of the appropriate paperwork with the IRS and takes the extra step of making available on its website a current list of its supporters,” according to Hepworth. The Alliance’s money comes from more than three dozen associate members and financial supporters, which include several of the largest pharmaceutical companies. For example, Dr. Jack Schim, a neurologist in California and an Alliance director, was paid nearly $329,000 between 2015 and 2017, with the bulk of the money coming from Allergan, maker of wrinkle treatment Botox, according to a database maintained by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. While the Alliance names its supporters, it doesn’t disclose how much each has contributed. Kennedy is the Alliance’s executive director and Woodberry’s president.

A state coroner has recommended a complete reframing of drug policy in New South Wales and says the government should consider decriminalising drug use. On Friday the deputy state coroner, Harriet Grahame, released findings from an inquest held into opioid-related deaths. The special inquest examined the deaths of six people from opioids in May 2016. Grahame recommended the government hold a drug summit, bringing together health, addiction, drug law reform and law enforcement experts focused on “minimising harm to users, their families and the community”. Most significantly, she said the summit should give “full and genuine consideration” to ways of reducing drug overdoses in NSW, including “decriminalising personal use of drugs, as a mechanism to reduce the harm caused by drug use”. Amid a suite of recommendations she also said the NSW health department should conduct “further research” into the use of medical cannabis for chronic non-cancer-related pain “as an overdose prevention strategy”. Grahame said the health department should consider introducing “additional venues” for the medically supervised injection of opioids. Currently there is only one injection room in NSW, in Sydney’s King’s Cross. “If the death rate continues upwards, as it has in the United States, the annual death toll could reach many thousands over the next five years.” Prohibition policies are rarely successful and are highly likely to cause harm to many in the community Harriet Grahame But it is Grahame’s comments about the wider decriminalisation of drugs that will cause most debate. “There is extensive research to support the view that prohibition policies are rarely successful and are highly likely to cause harm to many in the community,” Grahame wrote.

Komninos is not one of the 10 senior politicians under investigation, but his name does appear in one of the anonymous testimonies — obtained by POLITICO — where he is accused of accepting a bribe from Novartis in the form of “bundles of cash wrapped in orange tapes.” In an interview, he denied the allegation and said he worked to lower drug prices while in office. The testimonies, which were given under oath, contain several other similar tales of government officials receiving bribes in the form of bundles of cash. Novartis declined to comment on the allegations made in the anonymous Greek testimonies and the FBI report. We believe this is highly inappropriate and will defend our people and company against these claims.” The FBI declined to comment on its report and referred questions to the U.S. Embassy in Athens, which also declined to comment. Countersuits Maria Spyraki, a member of the European Parliament and spokesperson for the opposition New Democracy party, said that nothing in the documents released by Greek investigators so far provides hard evidence of any wrongdoing by senior politicians in Greece. “But the witnesses are not enough.” She added that the Greek parliament committee investigating Novartis had found no specific evidence incriminating any public official in Greece. In January, New Democracy also filed official questions to the minister of justice, Stavros Kontonis, asking him to explain how he plans to shelter the Greek judiciary from political influence amid allegations that those who have been accused are personalities that the ruling Syriza party would like to see tarnished. Stefanos Komninos, the former secretary-general of the ministry of economy, shipping and competitiveness, is accused in one witness statement of having kept the price of a box Galvus, a type 2 diabetes drug, at €300 instead of €150. A spokesperson for Touloupaki told POLITICO that her office is still conducting preliminary investigations into allegations that Novartis bribed public officials in Greece. Touloupaki’s office is also collaborating with anti-laundering officials in several EU countries to gather evidence of bribes being laundered out of the country, the two officials in Touloupaki’s office said.

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump’s long-promised plan to bring down drug prices would mostly spare the pharmaceutical industry he previously accused of “getting away with murder.” Instead he focuses on private competition and more openness to reduce America’s prescription pain. In Rose Garden remarks at the White House Friday, Trump called his plan the “most sweeping action in history to lower the price of prescription drugs for the American people.” But it does not include his campaign pledge to use the massive buying power of the government’s Medicare program to directly negotiate lower prices for seniors. “There are some things in this set of proposals that can move us in the direction of lower prices for some people,” said David Mitchell, founder of Patients for Affordable Drugs. Democrats pounced on Trump for not pursuing direct Medicare negotiations, an idea he championed before reaching the White House. “Trump chose the incremental over the disruptive.” Some parts of the plan were previously proposed in the president’s budget proposal sent to Congress, including providing free generic drugs to low-income seniors and sharing rebates from drugmakers with Medicare patients. Azar later told reporters that the administration would “seek input” on doing away with drug rebates in the Medicare system to encourage more direct discounts. Meanwhile Americans are paying more at the pharmacy counter due to health insurance plans that require them to shoulder more of their prescription costs. America has the highest drug prices in the world. But experts are skeptical the U.S. can pressure foreign governments to pay more for drugs. In the U.S., Medicare is the largest purchaser of prescription drugs, covering 60 million seniors and Americans with disabilities, but it is barred by law from directly negotiating lower prices with drugmakers.