At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) spoke about prescription drug prices.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Today, the committee will hear from a range of experts about the cost of prescription
00:04 drugs in America.
00:07 Americans pay the highest prescription drug prices in the world, nearly three times what
00:13 people in other developed countries pay for common medications.
00:18 Take the cancer drug Keytruda, which has helped extend former President Jimmy Carter's life.
00:24 It has an annual list price of more than $190,000 in the United States.
00:31 In Germany, the exact same drug made by the same company cost $89,000.
00:38 Jardians, we can all visualize.
00:43 Excuse me.
00:49 Senator Grassley.
00:50 I've had it too.
00:56 I'm with Grassley, sorry.
00:59 Jardians, you can all visualize the dancing lady in the yellow dress ad.
01:04 A medicine used to treat type 2 diabetes retails for more than $700 in the United States, $150
01:12 in Canada, the exact same drug.
01:16 Prices just keep going up.
01:17 In 2022, drug manufacturers raised the prices of more than 1,200 medications by an average
01:25 average of 32%, four times the rate of inflation.
01:30 The poster child for high drug prices is insulin.
01:35 It was discovered 100 years ago by Canadian researchers who surrendered their patent rights
01:42 for the sum total of $1 because they believe nobody should profit from this life-saving
01:48 drug.
01:49 The same thing is true of Jonas Salk and the vaccine that we use for polio.
01:54 I remember that as a kid.
01:56 He surrendered his patent rights to that drug too because it was so important.
02:01 When Eli Lilly launched its insulin product, Humalog, in 1999, a vial cost a modest $21.
02:09 Over the next 20 years, Eli Lilly raised the price of Humalog more than two dozen times
02:17 with the cost ultimately reaching $330 for that same $21 vial.
02:23 While the historic Inflation Reduction Act capped the price of insulin at $35 a month
02:28 for Medicare, many patients are still paying inflated prices for a century-old drug.
02:36 The pharmaceutical industry is going to tell you that high prescription drug prices are
02:40 the cost of innovation and point to billions of dollars in research and development.
02:45 In fact, a government agency financed by American taxpayers, the National Institutes of Health,
02:52 plays an important role in innovation and research.
02:55 NIH funding contributed to 99% of all new drugs approved by FDA between 2010 and 2019
03:03 with $187 billion in taxpayer-funded research, benefiting 354 of 356 new drugs.
03:12 NIH is part of the solution.
03:15 Too often, the prices charged by Big Pharma do not reflect a scientific advancement, rather
03:20 they're the result of skilled lawyers manipulating the patent system and skirting our nation's
03:25 competition laws.
03:27 Take the blockbuster drug Humira, which AbbVie introduced in 2002.
03:33 For more than 20 years, the company exploited intellectual property laws to build a thicket
03:39 of 165 patents that allowed Humira to avoid competition.
03:45 The result, $20.7 billion in revenue to AbbVie in 2021 alone and over $200 billion in revenue
03:53 over Humira's 20-plus years of exclusivity.
03:57 These are massive, profitable drugs.
03:59 I asked Blue Cross Blue Shield in Chicago, "Why are premiums going up so fast?"
04:04 The number one cause?
04:06 These high-priced prescription drugs.
04:08 Humira's not unique.
04:11 A recent study found that the top 10 best-selling drugs in 2021 had a combined 1,429 patent
04:18 applications filed, 72% of which were filed after the FDA approved the drug for sale.
04:25 You know what's going on if you even have a beginner course in this business.
04:30 The patent system is being manipulated and used by their attorneys to extend the patent's
04:35 life to avoid competition, generics, and bringing down the cost.
04:42 These blockbuster drugs were covered by an average of 42 active patents.
04:47 The FTC recently highlighted another page in Big Pharma's anti-competitive playbook
04:52 when it challenged more than 400 patents as improperly listed in the FDA orange book.
04:58 By listing these patents on inhalers, EpiPens, weight-loss drugs, and more, their manufacturers
05:04 delayed generic competition and padded profits.
05:07 The committee has taken a leadership in addressing Big Pharma's abuses.
05:11 Last year, we unanimously reported five bipartisan bills that address issues ranging from anti-competitive
05:17 pay-to-play, pay-for-delay rather, agreements, and sham citizen petition to patent thickets
05:23 and product problems.
05:25 This includes my bill with Senators Tillis, Coons, and Grassley to improve information
05:30 sharing between the FDA and the U.S. Patent Office.
05:33 This hearing will try to make it clear that our work is not done.
05:36 We have things to do.
05:38 Ask the American people what they think about this issue.
05:40 You know what you're going to hear.
05:42 We see an average of nine ads a day for drugs on television.
05:47 You cannot escape them.
05:49 God only knows where else the advertising is going.
05:52 How many countries in the world allow direct consumer advertising for drugs?
05:57 Two.
05:58 The United States and New Zealand.
06:01 New Zealand, for God's sake.
06:03 The only two countries in the world that allow this kind of advertising.
06:06 Why do we do it?
06:08 So that we can spell Xarelto and go to a doctor's office and say, "I think I need a Xarelto
06:13 to get well again," and to skip through fields of flyers.
06:16 Many doctors, instead of taking the time to argue a reason for a generic drug or no drug,
06:22 instead prescribe these drugs.
06:24 And as a consequence, the cost of medicine and health care goes up and up and up.
06:29 And the hard-to-justify profits continue.
06:33 I will now -- before I turn to my ranking member here, I want to acknowledge Senator
06:39 Welch's interest in this hearing and this issue.
06:42 When he first came to the committee, we sat down and talked about his subcommittee assignments,
06:46 and he told me that this is one issue he wanted to focus on.
06:50 So at some point in the hearing this morning, I'll be surrendering the gavel to him to continue
06:55 this hearing.
06:56 Thank you for being here, Senator.