| WASHINGTON, DC — Today at 10:30 AM, David Mitchell, a cancer patient and the founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs, will deliver remarks at a National Academy of Medicine workshop designed to explore strategies and policies that ensure drugs funded with taxpayer investment remain accessible and affordable to patients.
Read the full text of his remarks, “Taxpayer-Funded Drugs and a Pricing Crisis,” here. To view the webcast, visit this link. Patients For Affordable Drugs released a report on July 9, 2019 calling on the National Institutes of Health and Congress to review how American taxpayers fund research into new medicines, how the intellectual property is transferred to drug makers, and how to ensure that our system balances incentives for innovation with policies that maximize patient access to lifesaving cures. “If history is any guide, we know that drug companies are going to continue to charge as much as they can unless we stop them,” Mitchell will tell the audience. “And with 400 trials for gene therapies — we cannot afford to pay just whatever price the drug companies demand. “Here’s the bottom line: It may have been OK for NIH to wash its hands of price when drugs cost $200 or $2,000. But at $2 million a dose, it’s time to reconsider our approach. It’s not the 1990s and drug corporations rely on the huge portion of basic science taxpayers are providing. “It’s time we addressed price. Because if we don’t, then the NIH will keep fueling the drug pricing crisis.” ###
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