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New drug pricing: does it make sense? A discussion-debate at the annual Prescrire Awards ceremony

Pilule d'Or Prescrire 2015Skyrocketing prices for new drugs call for a strong response from citizens, healthcare professionals and health authorities. On 29 January 2015, at its annual "Pilule d'Or" ("Golden Pill") drug awards ceremony, the independent French medical journal Prescrire organised a discussion-debate on new drug pricing.

  • Marianne L'hénaff, representing the patients' groups TRT-5 and Collectif Hépatites Virales, spoke about how the exorbitant prices for new hepatitis C drugs result in restricted access to care and in discrimination.
     
  • Professor Marc-André Gagnon of Canada's Carleton University outlined drug companies' new niche strategy: marketing very high-priced drugs to a limited population of patients, and then extending their sales by expanding the number of indications or promoting off-label use. This explosion of outrageously priced drugs will get us nowhere, since it is not sustainable at a societal level.
     
  • Gaëlle Krikorian, a sociologist specialising in questions of intellectual property, especially for pharmaceuticals, suggested avenues to get out of the stalemate caused by drug company monopolies linked to intellectual property (patents, exclusive rights).

These analyses demonstrate that the principle of universal access to healthcare can only be defended when there is a strong political will and pressure from the public, especially from patients and from healthcare professionals. It means finding a way out of the situation in which drug companies have a de facto monopoly on biomedical research, by encouraging research financed independently of drug companies, by better using the flexibility embodied in international agreements relating to intellectual property, etc.

It is time to create ways to reconcile needs-oriented research with access to real progress for all.

Texts and videos of the presentations are available (in French) > HERE

©Prescrire 1 February 2015