Drug Industry Darkens View of Clinton Health Plan --- Others Predict Many Pharmaceutical Firms Will Benefit From Changes
The pharmaceutical industry again is responding to President Clinton's health-care proposal with bleak images of a crippled industry and stifled research if the plan goes through.</br></br>"What other industry can provide hope for curing AIDS, Alzheimer's, osteoporosis or cancer, except for the pharmaceutical industry?" said a spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association after the final plan was presented Wednesday. "If we tie the hands of the scientists so they can't address these diseases, there is no hope."</br></br>The industry now has even more to complain about than last month when the draft proposal was released: The President toughened many of the provisions that affect the drug industry. While drug coverage survived as a standard part of the benefits package, the rebate paid by drug companies to the government on medications sold to Medicare patients was raised to 17% from 15% in the draft. Moreover, that rebate can be higher if an individual drug's price has increased faster than general inflation or, in the case of a new drug, if it is deemed excessive or if the drug is sold for substantially less in other countries.</br></br>Still in the plan -- and still objectionable to the industry -- is an Advisory Council on Breakthrough Drugs to assess and publish an opinion on the "reasonableness" of new-drug prices. The industry is most nervous about having to provide cost information for a drug to the council and having prices for the drug in other countries be used as part of the review.</br></br>"It's crippling. It's absolutely devastating. They're going to trade off cheap drugs tomorrow for no new drugs for our children," said Leigh Thompson, chief scientific officer of Eli Lilly & Co., in a statement prepared by RX Partners, a public-relations group representing six drug companies. The Medicare rebate, the group calculates, will cost the industry $2 billion to $3 billion a year.