US Democrats to target pharmaceutical prices
pharmafile | November 10, 2006 | News story | Sales and Marketing |
The decisive victory of the Democrat party in the US mid-term elections looks set to bring new pressure on pharmaceutical company drug prices.
Disillusionment with President Bush, and in particular his handling of the war in Iraq, has given the opposition Democrat party control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate for the first time in over a decade.
The win puts the Democrats in the driving seat until the 2008 presidential elections, and its leaders have identified reform of healthcare as one of its top priorities.
Democrat Nancy Pelossi is set to take up one of the most powerful positions, speaker of the House of Representatives, and has long campaigned for further reform of the Medicare health insurance system, as well as caps on excessive pharmaceutical industry profits.
She has pledged to immediately draft legislation to allow the government to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies, which would almost certainly result in lower prices.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, a spokesman for US industry body PhRMA Ken Johnson said: "There's no question that the world just changed for us, but it's not a big surprise, and no one's panicking."
Despite this unruffled response, industry leaders are warning of the consequences of lower prices on industry innovation, and are fighting to defend the existing Medicare system, which has only been in operation since January 2006.
President Bush retains a veto on legislation, and could block any major changes to healthcare and pharma pricing laws.
The pharmaceutical and biotech industries could also turn any changes to their advantage particularly plans to significantly expand the number of people covered by Medicare. This increase in volume could offset any price cuts enforced on companies.
Finally, the Democrats want to see President Bush's restrictions on stem cell research in the US lifted which, if successful, would help the country's scientists pursue the promising new technology.
