Big Pharma Delays Production of Antibiotics For Deadly Infections

There's no money in a onetime cure...

Pharma executives "have shown less interest in medicines like antibiotics that actually cure disease than in those that only treat symptoms," writes Melody Petersen, author of Our Daily Meds. "Most blockbusters are pills for conditions such as anxiety, high cholesterol or constipation that must be taken daily, often for months or years.

They are designed for rich Americans who can afford to buy them." Nor are medicines for tropical diseases like malaria, which kills a child every 30 seconds, a priority, notes Petersen. They also lack ka-ching.

Since direct-to-consumer drug advertising debuted in the late 1990s, the number of people on prescription drugs and especially prescription drugs for life has ballooned. Between 2001 to 2007 the number of adults and children on one or more prescriptions for chronic conditions rose by more than 12 million reports the Associated Press and 25 percent of US children now take a medication for a chronic condition. Seven percent of kids take two or more daily drugs. Who says advertising doesn't work? More...

Big Pharma loves Obama Care

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Brian Schwartz
From Tim Carney’s article in the Washington Examiner, Dems tap drug maker millions for PhRMA-friendly bill:

Of all the single-industry lobbies in Washington, the largest is the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America. PhRMA spent $26.2 million on lobbying last year — that’s nearly three times as much as the insurance lobby, America’s Health Insurance Plans, which spent $8.9 million.

If you include individual companies’ lobbying, pharmaceuticals blow away the competition, beating all other industries by 50 percent, according to data at the Center for Responsive Politics.

Given this Big Pharma clout, it’s unsurprising that the bill Obama’s whipping for — Senate bill — has nearly everything the drug companies wanted: prohibiting reimportation of drugs, preserving Medicare’s overpayment for drugs, lengthy exclusivity for biotech drugs, a mandate that states subsidize drugs under Medicaid, hundreds of billions in subsidies for drugs, and more.

Read the whole article: Dems tap drug maker millions for PhRMA-friendly bill.