Congressional Record, Volume 149 Issue 83 (Monday, June 9, 2003)

[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 83 (Monday, June 9, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H5056]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

[Congressional Record: June 9, 2003 (House)]
[Page H5056]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr09jn03-65]

BRINGING AMERICAN PHARMACEUTICAL PRICES DOWN TO COMPETITIVE LEVELS

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, once again I rise tonight to talk about
the high cost of prescription drugs here in the United States, and
especially the high cost relative to what the rest of the
industrialized world pays for the same drugs.
I have told this story to many of my colleagues repeatedly about how
about a month ago we went to Munich, Germany, and bought a list of 10
of the most commonly prescribed drugs in America. The total price tag
for all 10 of those drugs compared to the average price here in the
United States is about triple. It is more than double what we pay in
the United States.
I have used the example of this drug, and this is the actual drug,
Tamoxifen, one of the most popular, most effective anti-breast cancer
drugs ever developed. The interesting thing is that the National
Institutes of Health, using taxpayers dollars, paid for most of the
research. What makes us even more upset is not just that the American
taxpayer paid to develop the drug, but the difference now between what
American consumers have to pay for this drug compared to the rest of
the world.
This drug, for example, we bought at the Munich airport pharmacy for
$59.05 American. To put that in context, this drug sells at pharmacies
here in Washington, D.C., for $360. In other words, to round off the
numbers, $60 in Germany, $360 in the United States. Worse than that,
the American taxpayers paid for the research.
Like Will Rogers, though, all I know is what I read in the newspaper,
and this weekend in The Washington Post there is a very compelling
story. What it essentially says is it is not just Tamoxifen any more.
In fact, let me just read for you from essentially what is a GAO study.
The headline is, ``U.S. Netted Little From Cancer Drug, GAO
Reports.''
``The U.S. Government spent hundreds of millions of dollars to help
develop Taxol, the best-selling cancer drug ever, but failed to get
much money back on its investment, according to a government report
issued yesterday.
``Drug maker Bristol-Myers Squibb earned $9 billion from Taxol, which
has been used to treat 1 million cancer patients, but the National
Institutes of Health received only $35 million in royalties, the
Government Accounting Office found.''
Now, on top of that, Medicare has spent over $687 million on Taxol,
so there are more taxpayer dollars going into Taxol.
Finally, the report says, and I am shortening it down to the bottom,
but if you want a copy we will have this up on our Web site by sometime
tomorrow afternoon, but the bottom line is the GAO, the investigative
arm of Congress, said that the NIH spent $484 million in research on
Taxol through 2002.
Mr. Speaker, we subsidize the pharmaceutical industry in three
separate ways.
First of all, we subsidize it on all the money we spend on basic
research. I am proud of the fact that here in Congress, the NIH, the
National Science Foundation, even DOD, we will spend this year about 29
billion taxpayer dollars on various kinds of basic research. Much of
that research goes to benefit the pharmaceutical industry. So we
subsidize them through the basic research we pay for them.
Secondly, we subsidize them through the Tax Code. They receive very
generous tax benefits for the research we do.
Finally, and what disturbs us the most, is we subsidize them in the
prices we pay. Americans pay far more than the rest of the
industrialized world for prescription drugs.
I believe Americans should pay their fair share. I think we should be
willing to subsidize Sub-Saharan Africa, but I do not think we ought to
have to subsidize the starving Swiss.
Americans deserve world-class drugs at world market prices. I hope
Members will support my bill, which I hope to introduce later this
week, to open up American markets to foreign competition to bring
prices down to reasonable levels so that all Americans can afford them.

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