Q: What was one of the top issues at your recent county meetings?
A: For several years, including at my 12 county meetings in March, Iowans continue to voice their concerns about the high cost of prescription drugs. Iowans depend on prescription medicine to improve their quality of life and live longer, healthier lives. However, commonly prescribed medications for diseases and chronic conditions, including cancer treatments, can cause financial hardship for families struggling to make ends meet. Americans spend hundreds of billions of dollars on prescription drugs. In 2023, the U.S. health care system spent $449.7 billion on retail prescription drugs. To help make prescription medications more affordable, I’m working to drive down costs without driving down the innovation that has helped Americans live longer, healthier, more productive lives.
According to the Government Accountability Office, four of the top 10 drugs with the highest Medicare Parts B or D expenditures were also among the top 10 drugs in advertising spending: Eliquis (blood thinner); Humira (arthritis); Keytruda (cancer) and Lyrica (diabetic pain). I’m pushing for more transparency in drug advertising. Transparency brings accountability. I’ve teamed up with Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois to introduce the Drug-Price Transparency for Consumers Act. It would require price disclosures on prescription drug advertisements to empower consumer choice and reduce bloated drug prices.
As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I’m laser-focused on boosting competition and rooting out anticompetitive practices that game the system to pad profits at the expense of taxpayers and patients. For example, brand-name companies producing prescription drugs under patent or exclusivity protection essentially are able to name their price by distorting marketplace competition.
Q: How does your bipartisan legislation take on drug companies’ abusive business practices?
A: The Senate Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction over antitrust and patent law. The shady practices of some drug companies to block competition and keep drug costs high are hurting patients and the taxpayer. I’ve written a pair of bills with Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota to tackle these abuses and deter anticompetitive practices that prevent generic drugs from entering the market. Our Preserve Access to Affordable Generics and Biosimilars Act would limit anticompetitive “pay-for-delay” deals that prevent or delay the introduction of affordable generic drugs that are 80 percent cheaper than brand-name counterparts. It would help put the brakes on these murky deals that pay generic manufacturers to delay bringing their product to the pharmacy store shelf.
Our Stop STALLING Act would deter branded pharmaceutical companies from filing sham “citizen petitions” with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with the intent to interfere with the approval of generic and biosimilar medicines. This anticompetitive tactic effectively stacks the deck against affordable medications from getting to market. Our bill would give the Federal Trade Commission enhanced authority to take action against those who file sham petitions.
For generations, Americans are fortunate to have an innovative health care system with breakthrough medical cures that save lives. When the marketplace works as intended, it provides incentives for pharmaceutical companies to make the investments in drugs and therapies and fosters competition to drive down prices. But when Big Pharma games the system to keep generics off the market or evades transparency with direct to consumer advertising, Congress needs to iron out the kinks in the system to help lower drug prices and save taxpayer dollars.
I’ve also joined members of the Judiciary Committee to improve coordination between the patent office and the FDA. Our Interagency Patent Coordination and Improvement Act would establish a task force between the United States Patent and Trademark Office and the FDA to help ensure the left hand knows what the right hand is doing. Clear lines of communication are essential to oversee the proper administration of patent laws, protect innovation and foster competition.
As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I will steer these and three additional bills I’m co-sponsoring to help boost competition, including my Prescription Pricing for the People Act that would require the Federal Trade Commission to complete its study in a timely manner on the impact Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) have on drug prices, as my bipartisan two-year investigation found with regards to insulin prices. Patients and taxpayers deserve relief from sticker shock at the pharmacy counter. I’m also working to pass the PBM Transparency Act to stop deceptive and unfair pricing schemes by PBMs.