The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) has spoken out against the new 2013 budget proposed by President Obama. PhRMA represents leading pharmaceutical research and biotechnology companies and some of the large members are as follows: Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN), Biogen Idec Inc. (NASDAQ: BIIB), Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE: BMY), GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MRK), Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) and a few dozen other companies and organizations. The group notes that PhRMA members invested an estimated $49.4 billion in 2010 in discovering and developing new medicines.
PhRMA’s President and CEO John Castellani noted, “Despite President Obama’s many pronouncements to support innovation, advance biomedical research, promote job creation and control health care costs for seniors, his 2013 budget proposal flies in the face of these important goals… Specifically, proposed mandatory rebates in Medicare Part D are a short-sighted proposition that could destabilize the program and threaten hundreds of thousands of American jobs.”
The organization, as you would expect, is showing that this would result in a staggering potential of job losses and said that a $20 billion per year cut in biopharmaceutical sector revenue would result in 260,000 job losses across the U.S. economy. It noted that government estimates also show the Administration’s proposals would have an impact of about this magnitude.
The biosimilars provision of the health care reform law is called as being the only bipartisan area with support for proper incentives to support future medical advances. Patent settlements and the overly broad powers of the unelected Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) are further topics unwelcomed.
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