US Opposes Transparency of Pharmaceutical Industry Economics at PAHO Meeting

It is not easy to make good policies on health care reform when you don't have good information. So it is surprising that the Administration is opposing a measure to have more openness about pharma industry economics.

In recent years, there has been a push for greater transparency of the pharmaceutical industry. One aspect of this concerns greater disclosures of the clinical trials on new drugs, including information about the outcomes of those trials. There are also proposals for greater disclosure of potential conflicts of interests with academic researchers and doctors who prescribe medicine.

Today the executive board of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is considering a proposal to have more transparency of the economics of the industry. Specifically, the original proposal was:

"(j) to develop, with input from Member States, a possible standard for disclosure of economic data for drug registered for sale, including disclosures of the costs of R&D, the prices of products, and the annual revenues from the sale of products."

Unfortunately, the US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) is trying to kill this language, raising a number of bogus objections, including that mandated disclosure would violate antitrust laws.

The reality is that there are few secrets within the industry about prices, revenues or R&D costs, if you can pay for pricey private sector reports, such as those provided by IMS Health. But the public, academic researchers not on the industry payroll, legislators and government policy makers have access to very little data.

The US SEC requires disclosures of the costs of clinical trials, when the information has a material impact on the value of a stock, and companies routinely put out press statements making all sorts of unsupported claims about the costs of particular trials. This has never been the basis for an antitrust claim.

We are not sure who in the DHHS leadership has been opposing the proposal to merely begin work on transparency standards, but someone in the White House or the Secretary's office should step in and fix things, by supporting the PAHO proposal to work on transparency standards.

Update on the PAHO negotiation is here:
http://www.keionline.org/blogs/2009/06/25/paho-guts-transparency/

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Comments

[tompoe]

As the author knows full well, the economics of Pharma is no secret. All that is needed, is to have the NIH conduct the Human Clinical Trials Phase of one product, using a nonproprietary automated clinical trials data collection system. The result would demonstrate clearly, that at its most conservative findings, all clinical R&D for drug development would cost 70% less than what is now claimed.

In other words, drug development would be affordable for any government to sponsor, leaving Big Pharma to go find some other way to do business. Too bad the author doesn't choose to focus on solutions, rather than try to perpetuate the past.

[comebackid]

They take "preditory capitolizm" to new levels. Resposible for thousands if not millions of deaths for money, do you think they care?

Read "Behind the Nylon Curtian" if you want to know the culprits behind this? It is a history of the DuPont's in America. Eye opening!

[navy62802]

Are we supposed to be surprised here? What I question about government secrecy is how can voters make accurate decisions at the polls if they're uninformed as a direct result of this secrecy? This kind of thing is stealing our republic from us.

[masscitizen]

WTF? Why should DHHS even be involved in objecting to this?

[coolette22]

Of course the Drug companies do not want people to know they are making hundreds of billions of dollars in profits while paying little in taxes. They don't want people to know they pay 90X more for advertising than they do for research. They don't want people to know that it is almost impossible to sue huge drug companies even though they put out addictive drugs with major side effects, some not known. They don't want people to know just how much influence they have with doctors and Washington DC poliiticians. THey don't want people to get their drugs cheaper from other counties like Canada even though its the same thing. The list goes on and on. They are among the biggest problem with a medical care system gone filty corrupt and capitalistic nightmarish. Another reason America is going down, down, down.

[James Love - Huffpost Blogger]

I agree, the industry is not supportive of transparency. But why is the US government siding with industry on this topic? Why isn't DHHS supporting the proposal to develop "a possible standard for disclosure of economic data for drug registered for sale, including disclosures of the costs of R&D, the prices of products, and the annual revenues from the sale of products."

[edwcorey]

Well, there are many reasons the government is siding with industry. Because, at heart, most of our "representatives" are fascists. They side with industry against the people and cannot be overcome with words alone. What do the people matter, except to be lied to in campaign season, then forgotten about as government skews the law and policy away from them. Every once in a while, if they absolutely must, they sacrifice one of their own, an Abramoff here, and Ebbers there--the chicken feed they throw our way. Who cares about Native American gambling casinos? And Ebbers is a Canuck.