Published in CommPRO.biz 2013.07.24

The Teeter-Totter

The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation finds itself running back and forth on a seesaw of its own making. It runs to the one end to care for those stricken by a horror story disease. But then it does a swivel and heads for the other end to collect its share of $307,000.00 some of those dealing with the coughing, wheezing and gasping desperately for breath pay every year to ease their suffering. The Foundation put up $75 million dollars to develop Kalydeco, the $307,000.00 a year drug sold by Vertex Pharmaceuticals. A drug based on NIH (National Institutes of Health) research funded by our taxes.

Vertex is quick to insist they have invested over five billion in R&D since going into business in 1989, with a “significant” amount on cystic fibrosis. It would be hard for them to be any less transparent than that. Given the formula the Pharma companies use to calculate their R&D costs, this doubletalk leads us to believe Vertex invested little or none of their own money directly into Kalydeco. Vertex priced it, “based on how well it worked in patients and the cost of developing it.” What? In other words, whatever the market will bear.

The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation’s share of the booty is secret. Best guess? Under 10% of the $307,000.00 Vertex collects each year from each and every suffering patient that needs this drug. And what are they doing with their share? Is it given to help folks pay for the drug? No, the Foundation is too busy looking for ways to invest in other new drugs. Did it ever occur to them to demand the right to look at Vertex’s books? To limit the cost to patients? Those seem like minimal demands for a $75 million dollar investment.

Oh no, no, that’s a “deal breaker.” What deal? They got no deal. Just hand Vertex most of the bucks they need to bring the drug to market for a paltry share of the revenue? Here’s a deal. Take their $75 million, add it to the NIH break-through and watch dozens of drug companies hungry for a winner jump for it. Anyone could craft a better deal than Vertex gave the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

Speaking of deals, America deserves a better deal on drugs. Canada has 10% of our population –less than the State of California– yet they pay a fraction of what we pay for drugs. Why? They negotiate lower prices; an option Congress denies us. Big Pharma pours a few million in the pockets of our representatives in the Congress for a deal allowing then to reap billions. Ethically, morally, there is no excuse for this insanity. No excuse for the Pharma sector to drive up the cost of health insurance, our taxes and out-of-pocket costs for drugs. There’s no excuse for the Congress to license the drug companies to rip off every American.  

Published in CommPro.biz 2013.04.30

Whose $$$$s Anyway?

Two decades ago, John O’Shea, a National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientist at the taxpayer supported entity, was pursuing JAK3, a protein that attaches itself to immune cells. Dr. O’Shea and his team at the NIH thought JAK3 might be used to fight autoimmune disease, specifically arthritis. In 1993 the NIH contacted Pfizer to see if the Pharma giant might have an interest in partnering with Dr. O’Shea in this research. Pfizer said “no thanks” because under the rules in place back then they would have had to share any resulting revenue from the collaboration with the taxpayers who fund the NIH.

Big Pharma’s “K” Street lobbyists had that requirement removed in 1995 and so Pfizer signed on in 1996. Fast forward twenty years and the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approves Pfizer’s new arthritis medication Xeljanz® (tofacitinib citrate). Three cheers all around says the NIH for the teamwork made possible by Dr. O’Shea’s discovery of JAK3, and his team’s collaboration over twenty years with the folks at Pfizer that led to Xeljanz®.

Big surprise, Pfizer doesn’t see it that way. They say that the good doctor’s work moved into the public domain when it was published in 1994, that anybody could have used it. So far as the cooperative research with Dr. O’Shea goes, Pfizer didn’t end up with anything they could patent, so it was of no value. It was all the work and the more than a billion bucks Pfizer invested that resulted in a new arthritis drug, Xeljanz®. Pfizer is charging Medicare over $2,000 a month for each and every patient on Xeljanz®, a mind-numbing $25,000.00 taxpayer bucks a year.

This whole scenario is so outrageous you wouldn’t believe it if you didn’t know it’s true. A private entity takes the work of a government researcher; brushing a deal aside they made to work with the NIH. They take all the credit for developing this drug, adding the standard boilerplate claim that they sunk a billion bucks into the effort, yada, yada, yada.

A figure debunked last year in a British Medical Journal study. All these billion plus drug development claims start with a half billion they might have earned had they invested in some once-upon-a-time index fund over the same twenty-year period. Then there is $300-$400 million they get in tax credits. At the end of the day Pfizer has maybe a couple hundred million in Xeljanz®, no small amount but nothing close to a billion. Talk about corporate welfare or voodoo economics. It’s time for this nonsense to stop. Without Dr. O’Shea’s team at the NIH there would be no Xeljanz®.  We want our share of the bucks.

The stranglehold Big Pharma has over the Congress is shameful. From endorsing the theft of taxpayer funded science to an outrageous ban that prevents Medicare and Medicaid from negotiating what they pay for drugs, the corrosive impact of corporate spending in our democratic process is overwhelming. It has to stop.