Since leaving my position as chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, I have dedicated much of my time to fighting to lower the cost of prescription drugs. Our elected officials now have an opportunity to enact much-needed reform through a bill in the United States Senate. This legislation would not only be good policy, but also great politics.
The Creating and Restoring Equal Access to Equivalent Samples Act (CREATES) aims to boost competition in the prescription drug market and assist lower prices.
For too long, entrenched interests have fought reform in this area, and the pharmaceutical industry simply values maximizing profits. It is now clear that the status quo regarding prescription drug costs is no longer sustainable.
Recent questionnaire conducted on behalf of Patients For Affordable Drugs shows that the cost of prescription drugs is most crucial to 8 in 10 Americans. Eighty percent of respondents said the cost of drugs should be a “top” or “most important” priority for Congress. The same poll found that more than 80% — including extensive majorities of Republicans, Democrats and Independents — support the CREATES Act.
It gets even better. The CREATES Act has an impressive list of bipartisan sponsors, including Sens. Diane Feinstein and Richard Durbin on the left, Sens. Rand Paul and Mike Lee on the right, and Sen. Susan Collins in the middle. Both AARP and the Heritage Foundation support it.
The CREATES Act would shorten the time between a drug’s patent expiring and a competitor entering the market with a cheaper competing product. The patent system gives inventors the legal protection they deserve, usually for about twenty years. Consumers benefit because costs typically go down after a patent expires.
What happens when a patent owner refuses to sell samples of his drug at market prices? Well, not much. And you’d be surprised how often something like that happens.
Other manufacturers have little ability to obtain access to samples, which is a necessity for competitors because they must demonstrate to the Food and Drug Administration that their product is chemically identical to the originator product.
The CREATES Act provides competitors with the ability to sue to obtain necessary drug samples. Understand that it simply builds on the existing patent system, it does not impose up-to-date burdens or penalize inventors who, let’s be straightforward, have essentially been given a monopoly by the federal government.
Republicans had a chance to include the CREATES Act in the Senate budget last week. If they had, they could have gone back to their voters and told them they had taken meaningful action on the high costs of their drugs. They could have done so by sticking to their free-market principles and simply strengthening the existing patent law system.
For leaders who have their eyes on good policy – and Republicans’ prospects for 2018 – it is more crucial than ever that Senate leaders support the CREATES Act.
Matt Borges served as chairman of the Ohio Republican Party from 2013 to 2017.
