Pharmaceutical News 2.0

Pharmaceutical companies are working every day to find new cures and treatments for society’s greatest health problems. As a cancer survivor, I understand that there is nothing more precious than your health and the health of loved ones. And I am here to tell you that without prescription medicines, the health of far too many would be in worse shape.

If you read nothing about the industry but various press accounts, however, you might mistakenly come away with the belief that America’s pharmaceutical research companies do nothing but lobby and create advertisements. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

West Virginians are right to review the issues surrounding the access and affordability of prescription medicines. These medicines are important elements of modern healthcare and yes, there are some among us who need help affording these treatments. America is the world’s leader in developing new medicines, but pharmaceutical companies know it is not enough to find and develop new medicines – as hard as that job may be. We must also help those in need afford them too.

You should know these facts:

Prescription drug spending is just over 10-cents of the total healthcare dollar. Elected officials looking to save money on healthcare tend to focus on prescription drugs but how can serious reductions in total healthcare spending be made when you narrow your focus to 10.5 percent of spending?

The appropriate use of prescription drugs helps lower overall healthcare spending. This is just common sense: It is far cheaper and leads to better healthcare to prevent heart attacks and strokes, for example, through the appropriate use of medicines than it is to pay for the in-hospital treatments including surgeries and rehabilitation that will likely come when medicines are denied.

There are significant programs available today to help those in need with their drug costs, programs that have received scant attention by this newspaper. There are more than 475 public and private programs available to help the uninsured or those with low-incomes. RxforWV (www.rxforwv.org or 1-877-WVA-Rx4u) has matched more than 43,822 West Virginians to programs offering discounted or even free medicines. Additionally, the prescription drug industry provided $55 million dollars worth of products to West Virginia’s free clinics between 2004 and 2005, including the Charleston based Health Right clinic at no cost, helping more than 49,000 West Virginians receive the prescription drugs they need. This is real help for real people.

The fundamental problems plaguing West Virginia healthcare are far broader than issues surrounding prescription drug coverage. They include improving access to health insurance for the more than 270,000 uninsured – about 16 percent of the state’s population – because you cannot get a medicine if you can’t see a doctor to get the prescription in the first place. The state must continue with its emerging efforts to address the core health problems of obesity – across all age groups – and the need for better health education. West Virginia is to be commended for recognizing that it must improve the quality of its community health.

Read the rest of this article on what the pharmaceutical industry is doing to help increase access to medicine.

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By Monica Lafon
Published: March. 16, 2009 at 1:37 PM

In 1998, Dr. James Orbinski was at a Doctors Without Borders clinic in the slum settlement of Kibera outside Nairobi, Kenya. He was part of a team offering treatment for malaria and diarrhea, and was also setting up an HIV prevention program. He sat in the clinic examining a 5-year-old girl with malaria who, after three days of standard chloroquine treatment, was still vomiting and running a fever. “Her malaria was clearly resistant to the medicine. Drug resistance is a natural phenomenon, and all infectious diseases eventually develop resistance. New drugs must constantly be found,” Orbinski recounted in his book, “An Imperfect Offering.” “Every year, worldwide, almost two million people die of malaria; 90 percent of these deaths occur in Africa, and because children have more delicate immune systems, 800,000 of those who die are children,” he wrote.

When Orbinski gave a lecture at Concordia University in Canada on “Global Health and Humanitarianism” on Sept. 25, 2008, he spoke about his experiences as president of DWB in Rwanda and about his work on HIV/AIDS, encouraging the audience to take action.

After DWB was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999, Orbinski dedicated the money toward the development of drugs for the “neglected” diseases. This was how the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative was born. He announced the release of two new anti-malaria drugs.

In an interview, he explained that because malaria develops drug resistance, it is not simply cured with one treatment. In 1999, a public-private partnership, the Medicines for Malaria Venture, was set up to develop new drugs for malaria, but the process could take up to 10 years. “In the short term, there is an enormous need for drugs,” he said. “500 million people can’t wait for what may come.”

In his book, he explained that the Neglected Diseases Working group thought that by combining two existing anti-malaria drugs into one tablet, they might be able to develop an effective treatment in the short term.

“The problem was real and immediate, but there seemed to be no way to get anyone to do anything about it,” he said. “With no viable alternatives on the landscape, we decided to do it ourselves.”

Read the rest of this article on Dr. Orbinski’s access to medicine fight.

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Article Date: 04 Jun 2008 - 3:00 PDT

Secretary of State for International Development (UK), Douglas Alexander, has launched a powerful new health alliance which could save the lives of 10.5 million people in developing countries each year by 2015.

International institutions, the World Health Organization, the World Bank, governments, civil society and business have joined together to form the Medicines Transparency Alliance (MeTA) to improve the health and lives of millions of people. Currently one in three people around the world still don’t have access to the basic medicines they need to fight illness and ten million children die each year for want of cheap and effective drugs.

Up to a third of medicines on the market in developing countries are fakes and a recent study published by the American Enterprise Institute found that a third of malaria drugs sold in six African cities either did not contain high enough levels of active ingredient, or did not dissolve properly.

Douglas Alexander said:

“Too many people die needlessly because they can’t get the medicines they need. There are currently 2 billion people around the world who do not have access to affordable medical services. A lot of medicines are not affordable, they are of poor quality, or they are simply not available.

“The problems of price, quality and availability can be tackled by improving transparency and access to information. MeTA will provide citizens, health care workers and others with information to challenge corruption, excessive pricing and waste. We now have a common approach and by working together millions of lives could be saved.”

In Ghana, the lowest paid government worker - who still earns more than half of their fellow countrymen and women - would have to work for a week simply to afford a course of malaria treatment.

Read the rest of this article on providing access to medicine for developing countries.

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