[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 56 (Wednesday, April 28, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E682]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF OUTRAGEOUS DRUG PRICING

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                           HON. DOUG BEREUTER

                              of nebraska

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, April 28, 2004

  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, this Member wishes to submit, for the 
Congressional Record, an editorial from the Omaha World Herald, which 
questions the skyrocketing cost of Norvir, an essential antiretroviral 
drug prescribed to AIDS patients. According to the editorial, the drug 
previously cost $1,500 annually, on average. The cost has now risen to 
approximately $7,800 per year--which is a 420 percent increase! Yet, 
Europeans are paying a fraction of this price for the very same drug.
  While this Member believes pharmaceutical manufacturers should be 
able to recoup the costs of researching, developing, and marketing 
pharmaceutical products, American consumers should not be forced to pay 
the world's highest prices for the medicines they need.
  Norvir has raked in more than $1 billion dollars for Abbott 
Laboratories since its debut in 1996. Apparently, such profit is not 
enough, as the company has quintupled the price of the medication. This 
is just one example of how the pharmaceutical industry is working to 
line its pockets with dollars from hard-working Americans.
  Government officials and consumers cannot allow the pharmaceutical 
industry to continue to charge Americans such egregious prices for 
medical treatments, especially when most drugs, like Norvir, are 
researched and developed with assistance from the National Institutes 
of Health (NIH). As taxpayers, we deserve and demand much better.

                           If Not Now, When?

       When Abbott Laboratories quintupled the price of its vital 
     AIDS drug, Norvir, it didn't upset merely the patients whose 
     health depend on their daily meds. The action also set off 
     activists already demanding drug reimportation from Canada 
     and other countries.
       Norvir is a key ingredient in the drug ``cocktail'' that 
     helps AIDS patients keep their disease under control. The 
     drug previously costs $1,500 a year, on average. That has 
     risen to about $7,800 a year--in the United States. Europeans 
     pay a tenth of that; Belgians, for instance, spend the 
     equivalent of $720 a year.
       Abbott can't raise its drug prices overseas because nearly 
     all other governments control pharmaceutical prices. Not only 
     does the U.S. government not generally cap drug prices (nor 
     are we saying it should), but Congress specifically forbade 
     federal agencies from negotiating drug prices in the recently 
     passed Medicare drug-benefit bill.
       Even more outrageous: Norvir was developed with federal 
     money.
       Work on the drug began in 1988 with a grant from the 
     National Institutes of Health to Abbott's AIDS drug research 
     program. The former head of that effort called the federal 
     money ``critical'' in the drug's rapid development. Norvir 
     debuted in 1996 as only the second protease inhibitor on the 
     market.
       It has earned more than $1 billion since then for Abbott.
       And the company expresses its thank-you by quintupling the 
     cost of the drug. It's reason? Well, company spokesmen said, 
     patients are using smaller doses of Norvir and the price 
     increase is needed to make up lost revenue. And, of course, 
     there is the overseas price-cap ``problem.''
       The federal government needn't be helpless in the face of 
     such gall.
       In the boilerplate wording that companies agree to when 
     they accept NIH money, it says that the government can 
     require ``reasonable'' prices for drugs developed with 
     federal grants.
       The clause isn't often invoked. But if not now, when?

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