Americans are feeling the strain of rising health care costs, and prescription drugs are a growing part of the problem. That’s why the leaders of the ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC), which represents employers providing health benefits to tens of millions of workers, and the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA), representing the companies that design and administer their pharmacy benefits, recently joined forces. James Gelfand, President and CEO of ERIC and David Marin, President and CEO of PCMA, co-authored an op-ed to highlight a shared priority: making prescription drugs more affordable by addressing Big Pharma’s egregious patent abuse.  

Both organizations agree that breathtakingly high prescription drug prices are unsustainable for families and employers:

“A tsunami of health care costs is crashing into the budgets of U.S. businesses. Each new wave forces employers to devote more resources to health care and fewer to employee wages, benefits, and investments for growth. Beyond the workplace, families already struggling with affordability are facing higher costs and difficult choices about the care they can afford. At the center of the storm are prescription drugs, which now make up more than 25% of total employer health care spending… We spend far too much on prescription drugs in this country.” 

Gelfand and Marin noted that Congress recently enacted significant PBM reforms in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, increasing transparency and providing employers with unprecedented access to information about their pharmacy benefits. Now, they argue, “Every part of the drug supply chain must contribute to solving this problem… Congress needs to address the prescription drug manufacturers’ role in high drug costs.”

At the center of the problem is abuse of the patent system. The Hatch-Waxman Act of 1984 was designed to strike a balance between rewarding innovation and allowing lower-cost competition to enter the market after a period of exclusivity. More than four decades later, that balance has been undermined by practices that delay generic and biosimilar competition. They highlight “patent thickets” and “product hopping” as just two schemes that big drugmakers use:

“Genuine innovation is being smothered by gamesmanship… This amounts to billions of dollars taken from employer budgets and the pocketbooks of families.”

Fortunately, bipartisan proposals have been introduced in Congress that close the loopholes and address Big Pharma’s abuse that is driving up health care costs. Marin and Gelfand specifically point to two pieces of legislation supported by a wide range of organizations:

“The Eliminating Thickets to Improve Competition Act would be a great start. It would limit the number of patents a drugmaker can assert in litigation, making it easier for generic drug manufacturers to reach the market without spending millions on litigation. 

The Biosimilar Red Tape Elimination Act would reduce drug prices and improve access for patients. It would eliminate artificial hurdles that keep biosimilars from reaching patients — hurdles that no other country in the world imposes.”

The message from employers and PBMs is simple: patients deserve innovative medicines, but they also deserve affordable access to them. Commonsense reforms can deliver the relief families and employers need, while continuing to promote innovation. In closing, the two leaders encourage lawmakers to return to the promise of Hatch-Waxman:

“Forty years later, Congress has an opportunity to restore that balance and deliver affordability to employers and workers at a time when they need it most.”

Read the full op-ed HERE.