Straight Talk from Billy Tauzin
Free Market Health Care Solutions Are Best for Patients
Billy Tauzin, PhRMA President & CEO
Before
American Legislative Exchange Council Annual Dinner in San Fransico, CA
It goes almost without saying that it is both a pleasure and an honor to once again be here with you this evening.
On PhRMA’s behalf and for myself, I feel a great affinity with the members of ALEC and its goals.
From the start of my political career in the Louisiana State legislature through my Congressional service and now and now on behalf of America’s pharmaceutical research companies, I have worked hard to build bi-partisan consensus around common-sense, conservative, free-market policy solutions to the health care challenges we face in America at the Federal, state and local level.
The values – the bi-partisan, down-to-earth, conservative values – ALEC embodies are ones that I have shared throughout my public and professional life.
ALEC’s deep commitment to economic freedom and the primacy of free-markets is an inspiration and a cause worth fighting for.
Tonight, I salute you for your dedication to the fundamental principle that free-market based solutions work best for preserving our liberties and building a strong country, strong states and strong communities.
Everyone here, along with many of your fellow state legislators across this great country, represent not just the best of public service but you also form a bulwark for freedom, opportunity, entrepreneurship and innovation.
The strength and success of America’s pharmaceutical research industry, I am proud to say, is just one example of what we work for when we fight for free-markets, reducing government interference in the economy and for fostering of an economic environment that promotes opportunity and innovation.
We all know that we face many difficult health care challenges in America – including challenges of access, insurance and the cost of services.
As we face those challenges and debate how to solve them, we must also remember that America is today the envy of much of the world when it comes to the quality of the health care available to most Americans.
In particular, the strength and success of America’s pharmaceutical research companies in creating life-saving cures and treatments is admired and envied the world over.
Why? Because – so far at least – there is still exists an economic environment here that still rewards risk-taking, entrepreneurship and innovation.
By contrast, in many competing economies and political systems around the globe, they have fallen victim to over regulation and crippling government price-controls in the health care sector that drive away innovators and risk takers -- -- such as those European countries that once had flourishing pharmaceutical research industries but who now increasingly lag behind the U.S. pharmaceutical industry.
And the result?
Well, it seems clear in the health sector: when you kill off the rewards for innovation, it is patients in need of new treatments and new therapies who suffer most.
They lose access to new and innovative medicines.
They lose hope.
Sometimes they lose their lives.
But the cost of these policies doesn’t just affect patients.
Researchers and scientists who once worked on problems in laboratories in their home countries will move off-shore to more fertile, stimulating economies.
The doctors and other health care professionals also leave in search of better livings elsewhere.
Innovation and the creation of spin-off technologies will dry-up.
That isn’t a future that America wants.
I know that most of you are familiar words of the Spanish philosopher George Santayana who said that those who ignore the lessons of history are bound to repeat it.
When it comes to providing patients with innovative health care and new medicines, the lessons of history are clear.
In the last thirty years, we have witnessed the decline of the once mighty European pharmaceutical industry. We have seen their best scientists and researchers coming here. We’ve seen how government imposed price controls and other economic regulation discourages risk-taking, innovation and opportunity. We’ve seen the pharmaceutical research literally fleeing to other places around the globe.
And yet, many in government and in our legislators seem unable to learn history’s lessons. They’ve seen the decline and conclude – wrongly – that it can’t happen in America.
We know that it can happen here.
Just ask any pharmaceutical executive charged with investing in new research and development facilities.
They used to want to build new facilities here in the United States. They will tell you about how state after state talk a good game about supporting innovative industries and how those states want the good, high-tech, high-value jobs that come along with the pharmaceutical industry. They will also tell you about the better offers being made in places like Ireland, Singapore and India.
Pharmaceutical companies – like any business – will invest money, resources and time where the risks they take and the innovations they make are rewarded.
Most importantly, we must remember that it is patients who live in countries that encourage and support health care innovation who are the beneficiaries of this investment. They will get the innovative medicines first.
As a cancer survivor alive today because of medical innovations and medicines – many pioneered right here in America – I have to tell you that I want that medical research and new drug development to be done here in America.
As a former patient, and on behalf of other patients, I want Americans to have first access to the latest medical innovations. I want decisions about my medical status to be made based on the best possible way to meet my personal medical needs, in consultation with a physician of my choosing.
Most importantly, I don’t want decisions about my health to be made by a government bureaucrat charged with keeping costs down through managing my care.
We should all recognize that we are in the midst of an exciting health care revolution. New technologies and medical breakthroughs are creating new possibilities every day.
When we talk about solutions to the health care challenges we face, we should be talking about how to stimulate this revolution, not crush it.
Pharmaceutical research companies are playing a leading role in this revolution.
But while we marvel at the promise of these new health care technologies and medicines, we should also not lose sight of the fact that patients are the ultimate beneficiaries of this revolution.
For all Americans, this means not just reason to hope that intractable diseases may be cured or turned into chronic conditions; it means the chance to live longer, healthier and more productive lives.
We can see the fruits of results of this scientific and medical revolution all around us. I am one of them.
In the last 30 years, studies show that survival rates have increased from 50% to 65% and that cancer death rates are down for the first time in 70 years. There’s more to be done, but those numbers are moving in the right direction.
Because of new medicines and treatments, many forms of cancer that were once a death sentence are today treatable as chronic conditions, or even curable.
And, there are nearly 400 new drugs to treat cancer that are being developed and moving through the drug approval process. There is no telling how some of those drugs will improve survival statistics and cut death rates even further.
And the benefits aren’t just for those who may suffer from diseases affecting large numbers of patients – like cancer, AIDS, heart disease or diabetes.
The benefits extend to rare diseases as well.
A rare disease, as some of you know, is one that affects only about 5,000 new patients a year – and fewer than 200,000 patients overall. These are the patients in need of both new treatment options and hope.
Their hope is not in vain. Earlier this year, PhRMA along with The Genetic Alliance and The National Organization for Rare Disorders released a report looking at the decade of innovation that we’ve had finding new treatments for rare diseases. It shows that exciting progress is being made in creating new medicines to treat rare-diseases.
ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a prime example. When Gehrig was alive and in his prime 70 years ago, his doctor’s didn’t’ understand very much about the disease and there was little they could do to help ALS sufferers.
It is today a different world – new treatments exist. New hope exists.
The first new treatment for ALS was approved by the FDA in 1995. That medicine was just one of over 160 new medicines specifically to treat rare-diseases approved in the last 10 years.
This means that today there are new treatments for diseases like ALS and also for conditions like advanced renal cell carcinoma, Fabry’s disease, Crohn’s disease, chronic myeloid leukemia and pulmonary arterial hypertension, to name just a few.
These treatments exist because our system encouraged and rewarded America’s pharmaceutical makers, scientists, doctors and universities for taking risks and being innovators.
While we should all be encouraged by these developments, as we seek solutions to our nation’s health care challenges we must also keep in mind that there is nothing inevitable about creating new medicines.
It is a long, risky and costly process. It can costs over $800 million dollars, on average, to bring a new medicine all the way from the laboratory to the pharmacy shelf, and it can take anywhere from 12 to 15 years to get those medicines on the shelf.
In addition, most of the compounds investigated as potential new medicines never make it out of the lab…only 5 of every 10,000 potential compounds investigated are ever approved as for use as a medicine.
In short, the odds are daunting but they are worth taking because we operate in an economic environment that encourages investment, innovation and risk-taking, America’s pharmaceutical research companies have always risen to the challenge.
Now, here’s the big “but.”
We all know what these challenges are. They include issues like:
The immediacy of those fears, of course, often drive proposals to fix health care problems.
Unfortunately, in too many State capitals and in Washington, the proposals to fix the problem rely on government directed solution and government- imposed controls.
For the sake of patients waiting who wait and hope for new cures and treatments, we must not succumb to so-called solutions that will stifle innovation.
We must work together to make sure that the healthcare market remains free because the best, most efficient and cost-effective solutions will come from a free market.
Because patients need help it means that we -- as pharmaceutical makers or state legislators committed to the free market -- must be active, vocal participants in coming up with solutions.
For instance, the affordability of health insurance and the large number of Americans who are either under-insured or uninsured is a huge problem.
You are talking about it here at this meeting. We are talking about it constantly in D.C. and in State Capitols.
Is government mandated and operated insurance a realistic solution? Is that what patients need and want?
Do you want the same kind of entities that managed Hurricane Katrina manage you health and your health insurance?
I think the answer to that is obvious.
What the right solutions are, what we can do together to improve health insurance and cover more Americans and do so in a way that is consistent with the free market is more complicated.
We must to work together to find solutions and if you are interested in working for solutions to the problem of health insurance – free-market based solutions – than I want to assure you that PhRMA and the pharmaceutical research industry will be there working with you and supporting your efforts
And, if you want to work for free-market solutions to the problem of access to medicines, we also are there to work with you and support you.
Helping everyone who need medicines get access to those medicines is one of PhRMA and America’s pharmaceutical research industry’s basic strategic goals. It is the reason the industry exists: a medicine that sits on the shelf helps no one.
That is why PhRMA and its member companies have not been standing by waiting on government-action activists to propose solutions to begin addressing the problem of access to medicines.
We’ve been working hard across the country, putting patients first and improving access to the medicines. We are also working on better ways to slow and reduce the cost of healthcare in by promoting health, disease prevention and wellness.
For example, there is our Partnership for Prescription Assistance PPA. I know I talked about PPA last year when I was here. But PPA continues to be a great success and it is worth talking about some more.
PPA helps match patient struggling to afford their medicines because they are un- or underinsured, to one or more of 475 patient assistance programs across the U.S. (180 operated by PhRMA member companies). These programs can help many patients get their medicines for free or nearly free.
To date, over 2.5 million patients have been matched to one or more prescription assistance program that can help them. And we are working hard to connect even more patients.
But we also know that helping patients get access to the medicines they need isn’t enough. We aren’t going to be successful in facing the health care challenges we face in this country unless we improve overall health and prevent disease.
That means that we must join in the effort to help healthy Americans get healthy and stay healthy.
One of the ways that we are trying to do this is through what we call our HealthyTowns initiative.
Along with community, business and health leaders in Jackson, Mississippi and Fresno, California, we’ve laid down a community-wide challenge to build healthy communities.
This means educating entire populations about healthy living, healthy diet and exercise and disease prevention.
This means promoting healthy living in schools, work-places, restaurants and churches.
This means getting the people in these communities to challenge each-other and setting health goals.
HealthyTowns is a demonstration project – but it is an idea that we think can be applied in many communities across the country. We are very excited by what we are seeing in Jackson and Fresno and what it is teaching us about helping people live healthier, longer and more productive lives.
Certainly, the PPA and HealthyTowns are not complete solutions to all of the health care challenges we face. But, I think they may be an important part of the solution.
In conclusion, I think that it is critical that state legislators and policy makers not associated with ALEC need to more fully understand the consequences of the actions for patients.
We must encourage legislators at all levels -- as they consider solutions to health care challenges -- to do what America’s pharmaceutical research companies are already doing: put the needs of patients first in everything they do.
Any proposal that doesn’t patients first should be a non-starter.
And, we who support the free markets should also ask for consistency from those who would impose government-price and other controls on the health care market.
The way that the pharmaceutical industry is simultaneously courted and vilified can cause your head to spin.
For instance, practically every legislator and governor across this country wants a PhRMA member company build a research facility or factory in their state or district.
Why? Well, there are the jobs – the biopharmaceutical industry in America has created more than 400,000 direct jobs and almost 2.5 million indirect jobs in this country. That’s a total economic impact of over $172 billion dollars, with states reaping almost $7.5 billion in tax revenues.
States want these jobs because they are good jobs. States want this industry because it is innovative, efficient and because it is an industry that invests not just in new products but in communities and in people.
At the same time, in state after state, legislatures and governors are trying-out schemes that undermine this industry and impose government price controls.
Just look at our experience in California of late.
Last year, pharmaceutical research companies spent many millions of dollars fighting-off a ballot initiative that would have imposed government price controls. This year, we are looking at new initiatives in the state legislature that would do the same thing.
At the same time, Californians’ voted over $3 billion dollars to encourage stem cell research and to make the state a leader in this cutting-edge biotechnology.
And there are more politicians than you can count who found it possible to be both for government imposed price controls AND for encouraging the growth of the biopharmaceutical industry.
It is more than a little a case of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing.
I want to close tonight by getting back to where I started my remarks.
The free-market in health care helped save my life.
Look around you tonight. It may also have saved your life, the life of the person sitting next to you, or the life of someone you love.
I salute each of you for your dedication to keeping the health care market free, and I want to say again that I, PhRMA and America’s pharmaceutical research companies are both proud and happy to work with you in finding real, non-governmental solutions that meet patient needs and put patients first as we confront the health care challenges ahead.
Thank you.
Billy Tauzin, PhRMA President & CEO
Before
American Legislative Exchange Council Annual Dinner in San Fransico, CA
It goes almost without saying that it is both a pleasure and an honor to once again be here with you this evening.
On PhRMA’s behalf and for myself, I feel a great affinity with the members of ALEC and its goals.
From the start of my political career in the Louisiana State legislature through my Congressional service and now and now on behalf of America’s pharmaceutical research companies, I have worked hard to build bi-partisan consensus around common-sense, conservative, free-market policy solutions to the health care challenges we face in America at the Federal, state and local level.
The values – the bi-partisan, down-to-earth, conservative values – ALEC embodies are ones that I have shared throughout my public and professional life.
ALEC’s deep commitment to economic freedom and the primacy of free-markets is an inspiration and a cause worth fighting for.
Tonight, I salute you for your dedication to the fundamental principle that free-market based solutions work best for preserving our liberties and building a strong country, strong states and strong communities.
Everyone here, along with many of your fellow state legislators across this great country, represent not just the best of public service but you also form a bulwark for freedom, opportunity, entrepreneurship and innovation.
The strength and success of America’s pharmaceutical research industry, I am proud to say, is just one example of what we work for when we fight for free-markets, reducing government interference in the economy and for fostering of an economic environment that promotes opportunity and innovation.
We all know that we face many difficult health care challenges in America – including challenges of access, insurance and the cost of services.
As we face those challenges and debate how to solve them, we must also remember that America is today the envy of much of the world when it comes to the quality of the health care available to most Americans.
In particular, the strength and success of America’s pharmaceutical research companies in creating life-saving cures and treatments is admired and envied the world over.
Why? Because – so far at least – there is still exists an economic environment here that still rewards risk-taking, entrepreneurship and innovation.
By contrast, in many competing economies and political systems around the globe, they have fallen victim to over regulation and crippling government price-controls in the health care sector that drive away innovators and risk takers -- -- such as those European countries that once had flourishing pharmaceutical research industries but who now increasingly lag behind the U.S. pharmaceutical industry.
And the result?
Well, it seems clear in the health sector: when you kill off the rewards for innovation, it is patients in need of new treatments and new therapies who suffer most.
They lose access to new and innovative medicines.
They lose hope.
Sometimes they lose their lives.
But the cost of these policies doesn’t just affect patients.
Researchers and scientists who once worked on problems in laboratories in their home countries will move off-shore to more fertile, stimulating economies.
The doctors and other health care professionals also leave in search of better livings elsewhere.
Innovation and the creation of spin-off technologies will dry-up.
That isn’t a future that America wants.
I know that most of you are familiar words of the Spanish philosopher George Santayana who said that those who ignore the lessons of history are bound to repeat it.
When it comes to providing patients with innovative health care and new medicines, the lessons of history are clear.
In the last thirty years, we have witnessed the decline of the once mighty European pharmaceutical industry. We have seen their best scientists and researchers coming here. We’ve seen how government imposed price controls and other economic regulation discourages risk-taking, innovation and opportunity. We’ve seen the pharmaceutical research literally fleeing to other places around the globe.
And yet, many in government and in our legislators seem unable to learn history’s lessons. They’ve seen the decline and conclude – wrongly – that it can’t happen in America.
We know that it can happen here.
Just ask any pharmaceutical executive charged with investing in new research and development facilities.
They used to want to build new facilities here in the United States. They will tell you about how state after state talk a good game about supporting innovative industries and how those states want the good, high-tech, high-value jobs that come along with the pharmaceutical industry. They will also tell you about the better offers being made in places like Ireland, Singapore and India.
Pharmaceutical companies – like any business – will invest money, resources and time where the risks they take and the innovations they make are rewarded.
Most importantly, we must remember that it is patients who live in countries that encourage and support health care innovation who are the beneficiaries of this investment. They will get the innovative medicines first.
As a cancer survivor alive today because of medical innovations and medicines – many pioneered right here in America – I have to tell you that I want that medical research and new drug development to be done here in America.
As a former patient, and on behalf of other patients, I want Americans to have first access to the latest medical innovations. I want decisions about my medical status to be made based on the best possible way to meet my personal medical needs, in consultation with a physician of my choosing.
Most importantly, I don’t want decisions about my health to be made by a government bureaucrat charged with keeping costs down through managing my care.
We should all recognize that we are in the midst of an exciting health care revolution. New technologies and medical breakthroughs are creating new possibilities every day.
When we talk about solutions to the health care challenges we face, we should be talking about how to stimulate this revolution, not crush it.
Pharmaceutical research companies are playing a leading role in this revolution.
But while we marvel at the promise of these new health care technologies and medicines, we should also not lose sight of the fact that patients are the ultimate beneficiaries of this revolution.
For all Americans, this means not just reason to hope that intractable diseases may be cured or turned into chronic conditions; it means the chance to live longer, healthier and more productive lives.
We can see the fruits of results of this scientific and medical revolution all around us. I am one of them.
In the last 30 years, studies show that survival rates have increased from 50% to 65% and that cancer death rates are down for the first time in 70 years. There’s more to be done, but those numbers are moving in the right direction.
Because of new medicines and treatments, many forms of cancer that were once a death sentence are today treatable as chronic conditions, or even curable.
And, there are nearly 400 new drugs to treat cancer that are being developed and moving through the drug approval process. There is no telling how some of those drugs will improve survival statistics and cut death rates even further.
And the benefits aren’t just for those who may suffer from diseases affecting large numbers of patients – like cancer, AIDS, heart disease or diabetes.
The benefits extend to rare diseases as well.
A rare disease, as some of you know, is one that affects only about 5,000 new patients a year – and fewer than 200,000 patients overall. These are the patients in need of both new treatment options and hope.
Their hope is not in vain. Earlier this year, PhRMA along with The Genetic Alliance and The National Organization for Rare Disorders released a report looking at the decade of innovation that we’ve had finding new treatments for rare diseases. It shows that exciting progress is being made in creating new medicines to treat rare-diseases.
ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a prime example. When Gehrig was alive and in his prime 70 years ago, his doctor’s didn’t’ understand very much about the disease and there was little they could do to help ALS sufferers.
It is today a different world – new treatments exist. New hope exists.
The first new treatment for ALS was approved by the FDA in 1995. That medicine was just one of over 160 new medicines specifically to treat rare-diseases approved in the last 10 years.
This means that today there are new treatments for diseases like ALS and also for conditions like advanced renal cell carcinoma, Fabry’s disease, Crohn’s disease, chronic myeloid leukemia and pulmonary arterial hypertension, to name just a few.
These treatments exist because our system encouraged and rewarded America’s pharmaceutical makers, scientists, doctors and universities for taking risks and being innovators.
While we should all be encouraged by these developments, as we seek solutions to our nation’s health care challenges we must also keep in mind that there is nothing inevitable about creating new medicines.
It is a long, risky and costly process. It can costs over $800 million dollars, on average, to bring a new medicine all the way from the laboratory to the pharmacy shelf, and it can take anywhere from 12 to 15 years to get those medicines on the shelf.
In addition, most of the compounds investigated as potential new medicines never make it out of the lab…only 5 of every 10,000 potential compounds investigated are ever approved as for use as a medicine.
In short, the odds are daunting but they are worth taking because we operate in an economic environment that encourages investment, innovation and risk-taking, America’s pharmaceutical research companies have always risen to the challenge.
Now, here’s the big “but.”
We all know what these challenges are. They include issues like:
- 70 million baby boomers about to retire, who will make big demands on health care services;
- Millions of obese children contracting preventable diseases like diabetes and heart disease and who will also make big demands on health care services;
- The growing cost of basic health care services; and
- More than 40 million Americans without health insurance.
The immediacy of those fears, of course, often drive proposals to fix health care problems.
Unfortunately, in too many State capitals and in Washington, the proposals to fix the problem rely on government directed solution and government- imposed controls.
For the sake of patients waiting who wait and hope for new cures and treatments, we must not succumb to so-called solutions that will stifle innovation.
We must work together to make sure that the healthcare market remains free because the best, most efficient and cost-effective solutions will come from a free market.
Because patients need help it means that we -- as pharmaceutical makers or state legislators committed to the free market -- must be active, vocal participants in coming up with solutions.
For instance, the affordability of health insurance and the large number of Americans who are either under-insured or uninsured is a huge problem.
You are talking about it here at this meeting. We are talking about it constantly in D.C. and in State Capitols.
Is government mandated and operated insurance a realistic solution? Is that what patients need and want?
Do you want the same kind of entities that managed Hurricane Katrina manage you health and your health insurance?
I think the answer to that is obvious.
What the right solutions are, what we can do together to improve health insurance and cover more Americans and do so in a way that is consistent with the free market is more complicated.
We must to work together to find solutions and if you are interested in working for solutions to the problem of health insurance – free-market based solutions – than I want to assure you that PhRMA and the pharmaceutical research industry will be there working with you and supporting your efforts
And, if you want to work for free-market solutions to the problem of access to medicines, we also are there to work with you and support you.
Helping everyone who need medicines get access to those medicines is one of PhRMA and America’s pharmaceutical research industry’s basic strategic goals. It is the reason the industry exists: a medicine that sits on the shelf helps no one.
That is why PhRMA and its member companies have not been standing by waiting on government-action activists to propose solutions to begin addressing the problem of access to medicines.
We’ve been working hard across the country, putting patients first and improving access to the medicines. We are also working on better ways to slow and reduce the cost of healthcare in by promoting health, disease prevention and wellness.
For example, there is our Partnership for Prescription Assistance PPA. I know I talked about PPA last year when I was here. But PPA continues to be a great success and it is worth talking about some more.
PPA helps match patient struggling to afford their medicines because they are un- or underinsured, to one or more of 475 patient assistance programs across the U.S. (180 operated by PhRMA member companies). These programs can help many patients get their medicines for free or nearly free.
To date, over 2.5 million patients have been matched to one or more prescription assistance program that can help them. And we are working hard to connect even more patients.
But we also know that helping patients get access to the medicines they need isn’t enough. We aren’t going to be successful in facing the health care challenges we face in this country unless we improve overall health and prevent disease.
That means that we must join in the effort to help healthy Americans get healthy and stay healthy.
One of the ways that we are trying to do this is through what we call our HealthyTowns initiative.
Along with community, business and health leaders in Jackson, Mississippi and Fresno, California, we’ve laid down a community-wide challenge to build healthy communities.
This means educating entire populations about healthy living, healthy diet and exercise and disease prevention.
This means promoting healthy living in schools, work-places, restaurants and churches.
This means getting the people in these communities to challenge each-other and setting health goals.
HealthyTowns is a demonstration project – but it is an idea that we think can be applied in many communities across the country. We are very excited by what we are seeing in Jackson and Fresno and what it is teaching us about helping people live healthier, longer and more productive lives.
Certainly, the PPA and HealthyTowns are not complete solutions to all of the health care challenges we face. But, I think they may be an important part of the solution.
In conclusion, I think that it is critical that state legislators and policy makers not associated with ALEC need to more fully understand the consequences of the actions for patients.
We must encourage legislators at all levels -- as they consider solutions to health care challenges -- to do what America’s pharmaceutical research companies are already doing: put the needs of patients first in everything they do.
Any proposal that doesn’t patients first should be a non-starter.
And, we who support the free markets should also ask for consistency from those who would impose government-price and other controls on the health care market.
The way that the pharmaceutical industry is simultaneously courted and vilified can cause your head to spin.
For instance, practically every legislator and governor across this country wants a PhRMA member company build a research facility or factory in their state or district.
Why? Well, there are the jobs – the biopharmaceutical industry in America has created more than 400,000 direct jobs and almost 2.5 million indirect jobs in this country. That’s a total economic impact of over $172 billion dollars, with states reaping almost $7.5 billion in tax revenues.
States want these jobs because they are good jobs. States want this industry because it is innovative, efficient and because it is an industry that invests not just in new products but in communities and in people.
At the same time, in state after state, legislatures and governors are trying-out schemes that undermine this industry and impose government price controls.
Just look at our experience in California of late.
Last year, pharmaceutical research companies spent many millions of dollars fighting-off a ballot initiative that would have imposed government price controls. This year, we are looking at new initiatives in the state legislature that would do the same thing.
At the same time, Californians’ voted over $3 billion dollars to encourage stem cell research and to make the state a leader in this cutting-edge biotechnology.
And there are more politicians than you can count who found it possible to be both for government imposed price controls AND for encouraging the growth of the biopharmaceutical industry.
It is more than a little a case of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing.
I want to close tonight by getting back to where I started my remarks.
The free-market in health care helped save my life.
Look around you tonight. It may also have saved your life, the life of the person sitting next to you, or the life of someone you love.
I salute each of you for your dedication to keeping the health care market free, and I want to say again that I, PhRMA and America’s pharmaceutical research companies are both proud and happy to work with you in finding real, non-governmental solutions that meet patient needs and put patients first as we confront the health care challenges ahead.
Thank you.