The Miracles of Medicine

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

What is the value of a life? Unfortunately, that question is often ignored in the heated public debate over prescription drug prices.

In a recent editorial ("High and rising price of drugs," April 19), The Roanoke Times ignores the significant advancements of health care due in large part to the innovation of America's research-based pharmaceutical companies.

Medicines made today - the results of decades of work by tens of thousands of the world's best medical researchers - allow patients to live longer, healthier, more productive lives. Who among us doesn't have a loved one that - through the grace of God and the power of modern medicines - beat cancer, lowered his blood pressure or controlled her diabetes?

I know firsthand what patients fighting a life-threatening condition face. Just over a year ago, I underwent extensive cancer surgery and began a long series of difficult chemotherapy and radiation treatments. At times, it didn't look too good for me.

Yet, miraculously, a new cancer drug, only recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration, ended up saving my life. Thank God for those researchers.

Pharmaceutical innovation has helped improve the survival rate for cancer by 10 percent over the past 20 years to 62 percent today, and these drugs have rendered many forms of cancer into treatable diseases rather than debilitating and terminal ones.

Every day, some patient anxiously awaits a new miracle. It could be your daughter or your next-door neighbor. America's biopharmaceutical companies are expected to take the lead in defeating crippling and deadly diseases, and this demands that we, as an industry, be innovative.

With every new breakthrough medicine - costing nearly a $1 billion and needing 14 years of painstaking research - we save lives and improve the quality of life for countless people.

All of that research and development culminates in one very human moment. This is the moment between doctor and patient when the benefits and risks of treatment are laid out. Such a moment is private, full of hope and of fear. Such a moment connects us with our mortality.

For me, this moment also was a reminder of the importance of the work done every day in our labs all across America. I am proud that last year, PhRMA member companies invested a record $38.8 billion in researching and developing new medicines - an increase of 12.6 percent over the previous year. That's a lot of money. But again, what is the value of a life?

So ultimately, our mission does not end with developing new medicines, as hard as that job may be. A pill helps no one if a patient cannot afford it, and that's why we helped create the Partnership for Prescription Assistance (www.pparx.org or 1-888-4PPA-NOW).

PPA brings together America's pharmaceutical companies, doctors, nurses, other health-care providers, patient advocacy organizations and community groups to help qualifying patients who lack prescription coverage get the medicines they need either free or nearly free.

Our mission is to increase awareness of patient assistance programs and boost enrollment of those who are eligible. The Partnership for Prescription Assistance offers a single point of access to more than 275 public and private patient assistance programs, including more than 150 programs offered by pharmaceutical companies.

In 2004 alone, patient assistance programs offered by America's pharmaceutical companies filled an estimated 22 million prescriptions worth a wholesale value of nearly $4.1 billion.

I'm proud of the progress we've made in fighting disease and optimistic about future cures looming on the horizon. Simply put, the dedicated men and women of America's biopharmaceutical research companies remain committed to saving lives. That's our job. It's what we do. It's why we get up in the morning and go to work, despite being criticized in the public debate over prescription drug prices.

What is the value of a life? Well, to us, it is priceless.