WASHINGTON, D.C. (September 15, 2022) – The Association for Accessible Medicines (AAM) President and CEO Dan Leonard today released the following statement in response to new analysis by healthcare consulting firm, Avalere, showing that generic drugs continue to be misplaced on higher formulary tiers, unfairly driving up costs for patients:
Recently, increasing numbers of patients are using pharmacy discount cards to afford their medicines. Advertising for these programs can be found everywhere. Unfortunately, the existence and explosive growth of pharmacy discount cards is merely one more symptom of a chronically broken system that limits patient access to what should be affordable generic medicines.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (August 7, 2022) – The members of the Association for Accessible Medicines (AAM) and the Biosimilars Council are extremely disappointed by the Senate’s passage of legislation that will further frustrate patient access to safe, affordable generic and biosimilar medicines. The Senate has chosen to replace competition – the only proven way to provide patients relief from high brand drug prices – with a flawed framework for government price setting that will chill the development of, and reduce patient access to, lower-cost generic and biosimilar medicines.
Congress is actively seeking to advance legislation to allow the Medicare program to “negotiate” the prices of brand drugs. However, these proposals neglect to consider the impact on the development of lower-cost generic and biosimilar medicines.
Generic medicines offer proven cost savings for America’s seniors and taxpayers, more than $2 trillion over the past 10 years alone. This is the result of robust head-to-head price competition under which multiple generic drug makers fight for market share based on dramatically lower prices.
When seniors with Medicare drug coverage are paying the full cost for their generic seizure or asthma medications, it’s concerning. When the share of patients who have paid the full cost for certain generic drugs increases by nearly 20 percentage points over three years, it’s alarming. And when the price that patients with insurance are paying is higher than the price charged by generic manufacturers, it’s a clear sign that something is broken in the Medicare drug program.
On May 23, 2022, the Association for Accessible Medicines and its Biosimilars Council urged the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate the competitive impact of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and their various abusive behaviors that undermine patient access to safe, affordable pharmaceutical care.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Each year, the Association for Accessible Medicines releases a savings report that highlights where and how generic and biosimilar drugs save the US health care system hundreds of billions of dollars - over $338 billion in 2021.
Recently, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the 2021-2030 National Health Expenditure (NHE) report, prepared by their Office of the Actuary. The report serves as the authoritative estimate of total U.S. health spending and provides important clues as to what is (and is not) driving health care costs.1