Working for consumers

This week the Senate Judiciary Committee voted for legislation I sponsored to stop the wheeling and dealing that delays the entry of lower-priced medicines in the marketplace.  My pro-consumer bill, the Preserve Access to Affordable Generics Act, would prohibit brand-name drug manufacturers from entering into agreements with generic drug companies designed to keep cheaper generic equivalents off the market.

I introduced this bill with Senator Herb Kohl of Wisconsin because these pay-for-delay deals impede generic drug competition and keep drug costs high for Americans.  Our bill takes direct aim at anti-consumer, anti-competitive agreements between generic and brand name pharmaceutical manufacturers that line drug-makers pockets at the expense of consumers.

The legislation responds to two appellate court decisions in 2005, which permitted these kinds of pay-off agreements despite the opposition of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).  In the two years following these court decisions, the FTC determined that nearly half of all patent settlements involved payments from the brand-name to the generic manufacturer in return for an agreement by the generic to keep its drug off the market.  In 2004, the year before the court decisions, no patent settlement reported to the FTC contained such an agreement.  A study by the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association said health plans and consumers could save $26.4 billion over five years by using the generic versions of 14 popular drugs that are scheduled to lose their patent protections before 2010.

Senator Kohl and I first introduced our pro-consumer bill in 2006.  We introduced it again this year and will continue to work for its final passage by Congress.