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Journal editor scolds drug industry

Reuters Health
July 8, 2000


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New York. The editor of the New England Journal of Medicine accused the pharmaceutical industry of hiding behind a cloak of "exaggerated or misleading" claims to justify high drug prices and shirking its duty to the public in its drive for huge profits in an editorial June 22.

Responding to a drug company’s claim that price controls would squelch innovation and deprive Americans of new cures and better treatments, Marcia Angell argued that many of the new drugs that companies produce "add little to the therapeutic armamentarium except expense and confusion."

Angell expressed concern that the congressional debate over a Medicare prescription drug benefit has largely focused on who will pay and the breadth of coverage, instead of the price of the drugs themselves.

Medicare beneficiaries who lack supplemental insurance pay twice as much, on average, for the 10 most commonly prescribed drugs compared to favored customers, including large HMOs and the Veterans Affairs system, the editorial stated.

Alan Holmer, president of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which represents drug companies, issued a prepared statement criticizing Angell’s point of view as "a complete distortion of the facts."