Industry analysts recently announced that pharmaceutical companies have raised the wholesale prices of brand-name prescription drugs by about 9 percent in the last year (according to “Drug Makers Raise Prices in Face of Health Care Reform” published in the New York Times on November 15, 2009). The news that the industry has been raising its prices at the fastest rate in years should come as no surprise. Prescription drug sales in the US increased
from $40.3 billion in 1990 to $286.5 billion in 2007, as the industry shifted its
orientation from focusing on research and development to marketing.

PPC recently collaborated with the Maine Center for Economic Policy (MECEP) to publish a report on prescription drug policy reform that takes issue with the industry’s aggressive marketing tactics that have contributed to the dramatic
increase in prescription drug use and costs in recent years. Choices: A New Kind of House Call: Prescription Drug Reform That Works, written by PPC policy analyst Jennifer Reck, examines the steps being taken to curb undue industry influence, such as evidence-based prescribing as a means to improve access to safe, effective prescription drugs, while containing costs.

The collaboration between MECEP and PPC grew out of an initiative, funded by the Maine Health Access Foundation, to develop and advocate for policy strategies to help contain sky-rocketing health care costs. Through this initiative, MECEP is working to improve transparency in health care coverage so consumers can make better informed choices and PPC is promoting prescribing practices based on science and current research from sources independent of the pharmaceutical industry.

As an alternative to the drug industry’s tactics, PPC promotes prescriber education programs which send trained clinicians to physicians’ offices to present the best available, objective scientific evidence in a given therapeutic area. Unlike pharmaceutical sales representatives, who are paid on commission to get prescribers to write prescriptions for their products, prescriber educators are not trying to sell anything. They provide independent, evidence-based information.

In addition, PPC is working to engage consumers in prescribing decisions as a way to help to offset the relentless direct-to-consumer advertising conducted
by drug companies. PPC has partnered with Consumer Reports Health Best Buy Drugs™ to provide consumers with balanced, consumer-friendly information about prescription drugs.

Download A New Kind of House Call by clicking the link under Related Documents.