Today CPPI released the below statement regarding the Biden Administration's proposals published this week to lower prescription drug prices through a budgetary expansion of the Inflation Reduction Act.
“Access to lower-price prescription medications is a matter of life or death for millions of Americans. President Biden accurately noted that identical medicines are available in Canada for a fraction of the prices Big Pharma charges Americans. While Medicare-eligible Americans are at least two years away from lowered prices on only ten brand drugs, personal importation provides an immediate way for consumers to drastically reduce the cost of their medicine for many, many maintenance drugs,” says Jack Pfeiffer, executive director of the Campaign for Personal Prescription Importation. “With savings of 50-90% on the same prescription meds from Canada, it is no wonder that millions of Americans already depend on personal prescription importation to lower their prices by and have for years.”
The initial Inflation Reduction Act, signed in 2022, requires the administration to identify an initial set of 10 drugs to negotiate. Among the 10 medications that the United States has targeted for negotiation, prices can range from three to eight times higher than in Canada, Japan and other industrialized countries, according to a January report from the Commonwealth Fund, a research nonprofit, which studied 2021 data.
Meanwhile, pharmaceutical manufacturers are mounting a “blitz of legal challenges” to battle against President Biden’s plan to lower seniors’ prescription drug costs, around the country to invalidate the Inflation Reduction Act program that aims to reduce the price of medications for high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer and diabetes.