How big pharma keeps drug prices high (with Priti Krishtel and John Arnold)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

Business, Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 7 January 2020

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The American pharmaceutical industry is rigged to make a handful people fabulously wealthy while everyone else gets screwed over. Because of intricate patent laws, we pay double what people in 29 other rich countries pay. Experts and change-makers Priti Krishtel and John Arnold join Nick and Jasmin to explain how we got into this mess (Monopolies! Patent law!), and what we can do about it. Priti Krishtel is the Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of I-MAK, a global organization that works to increase access to lifesaving medicine. A 15-year veteran of the global access to medicines movement, she helped lead the movement to a pivotal moment in treatment access history with the passage of a health-friendly patent law. Twitter: @pritikrishtel @IMAKglobal John Arnold is a former hedge fund manager who, with his wife Laura, now focuses on advocacy through their organization Arnold Ventures. Arnold Ventures has distributed more than $175 million in grants to over 80 healthcare nonprofit organizations, universities, and institutes with the ultimate goal to lower healthcare spending without compromising quality. Twitter: @JohnArnoldFndtn Further reading: It’s Time for Pharmaceutical Companies to Have Their Tobacco Moment: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/24/opinion/drug-prices-congress.html A Humira Prescription Costs $38,000 A Year Because Our Patent System Is Being Abused: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/opinion-humira-costs-patents_n_5bd0c893e4b0a8f17ef3961f How Big Pharma Reaps Profits While Hurting Everyday Americans: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/democracy/reports/2019/08/30/473911/big-pharma-reaps-profits-hurting-everyday-americans/ Comprehensive Reform to Lower Prescription Drug Prices: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/healthcare/news/2019/01/29/465621/comprehensive-reform-lower-prescription-drug-prices/ A Supreme Court victory for lowering drug prices: https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/385326-why-scotus-ruling-in-oil-states-v-greenes-energy-group-is-a-win-for-working How a billionaire couple greased the skids for Nancy Pelosi’s drug pricing bill: https://www.statnews.com/2019/11/26/laura-john-arnold-billionaire-greased-the-skids-for-drug-pricing-bill/ Billionaire Philanthropist John Arnold On Drug Prices: Congress Needs to Act: https://www.forbes.com/sites/denizcam/2018/11/29/billionaire-philanthropist-john-arnold-on-drug-prices-the-congress-needs-to-act/#b6097ee57a25 Millions in U.S. Lost Someone Who Couldn’t Afford Treatment: https://news.gallup.com/poll/268094/millions-lost-someone-couldn-afford-treatment.aspx Our website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Our twitter: @PitchforkEcon Our instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Americans are paying more for drugs than Germans or Swedes or Canadians.
0:08.0	34 million Americans have lost a family member or friend in the last five years because of high drug costs.
0:15.0	There's no reason for an epipan to cost more than 25 bucks.
0:18.0	We have a completely broken market when it comes to prescription drug.
0:22.0	We need to make sure that the industry is aligned with the goals and needs of society.
0:27.0	From the offices of Civic Ventures in downtown Seattle, this is Pitch Fork Economics with
0:38.3	Nick Hanauer.
0:40.2	In honest conversation about how to make capitalism work for everyone.
0:48.5	I'm Nick Henauer, founder of Civic Ventures.
0:51.6	I'm Jasmine Weaver. I'm the Executive Vice President here at Civic Ventures and I do a lot of our policy work including
0:57.7	our work on minimum wage. So Jasmine in this episode of Pitch Fork Economics we're going to talk about the
1:07.5	debacle which is pharma pricing, pharma drug pricing in the USA. It's not a surprise to listeners that drug prices in
1:17.3	the USA are wildly inflated. On average, people in other countries spend about 56% of what Americans spend on exactly the same drug.
1:25.8	But I know you did some work on this earlier in your career, didn't you?
1:30.3	Yeah, about 10 years ago I did some advocacy on prescription drugs and
1:33.7	prescription drug prices and to me it's just amazing to see how things have just
1:38.4	gotten worse. It's really terrible and getting more dire all the time and you know the pod is devoted to these broad
1:46.1	economic issues and what's particularly acute is that you know for most folks
1:59.1	their wages have been flat for 40 years but you know critical life inputs like prescription drugs and all kinds of drugs have gone up every year.
2:05.7	You know, so it's a terrible double whammy.
2:08.8	And the statistics really are dire.
2:10.5	One in four Americans report, they are a family member didn't fill a
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Civic Ventures, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Civic Ventures and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.