Peter Maybarduk

High prices start with Big Pharma. Prices won’t fall until we crack down on drug corporations.

PhRMA also put figures today to its U.S. infrastructure investments and patient assistance programs. Most of these are not new, and patient assistance programs are notoriously hard to navigate.

Lowering prices is a simpler way to promote access to medicine.

But the prices are still unaffordably high for most patients and cannot substitute for offering broadly low prices to insurers and benefit managers, to support widespread access.

Some drugmakers have announced lower list prices for some drugs through direct-to-patient sales. These can be useful for limited numbers of people.

Puffing up direct-to-patient sales lets Big Pharma pass the blame for high prices to insurers and benefit managers, without taking serious responsibility itself to make medicine affordable.

Sanders report

Meanwhile, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), ranking member of the Senate health committee, issued a report showing that prices are higher now for nearly 700 prescription drugs than when Donald Trump took office.

www.sanders.senate.gov/wp-content/u...

Today PhRMA announced a new website, AmericasMedicines.com, to support direct-to-patient sales of prescription drugs.

The White House had set today as a deadline for drugmakers to offer Americans lower prices or face government action, including an expected rule on most-favored nation pricing.

LMAO

PhRMA’s long-awaited answer to anger about its prices, which cause rationing & suffering & waste tens of billions in healthcare $$$ is …

… a website.

To support DTP sales.

You would think a trillion-dollar industry that prides itself on innovation could do better.

You would be wrong.

Thanks to health leaders Emily Bass, Mitchell Warren, Asia Russell, Amanda Banda, and Isata Dumbuya. And to our event co-hosts UNAIDS, Health GAP, People's Medicines Alliance, UAEM, Treatment Action Group, RESULTS, and Partners In Health.

We had a critical discussion about continuing the fight to bring medicines to all, with the first step being bringing that breakthrough — at that price — to the world.

Thanks to UNAIDS' Winnie Byanyima and Unitaid's Tenu Avafia for joining us today and for your leadership.

We are launching a global campaign to make long-acting HIV prevention available to everyone, everywhere.

With allies worldwide we will:

*Challenge drugmakers’ power & patents; make $40 price available to all countries

*Push for ambition from govt, funders to help 10 million+ people access PrEP LA

State is cutting HIV/AIDS programming over Congress’s objection and full appropriation, but there is no “America First” when it comes to infectious disease. Trump’s cuts will save no more than a rounding error, but cost America its credibility, and likely millions of people their very lives.

U.S. to Cut Out Nongovernmental Groups in Refocusing Health Aid

State’s Health Strategy is cover for cruelty.

While the Pentagon budget balloons to trillion+ dollars w/Trump’s vanity projects, the admin picks out critically underfunded needs of global health for slashing & blames development groups for budgetary waste.

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/u...

We Have More PrEP Options Than Ever—But Who Will Be Able To Afford Them? HIV advocates worry the high sticker price for brand-name PrEP—including long-acting injectables—will limit access, especially as federal support wavers.

“The discounts, rebates, and patient assistance that Gilead offers [for LEN PrEP] are based on the underlying high price. If they really wanted to broaden access, they should just lower the list price and everything else would be easier,” says @maybarduk.bsky.social. www.thebody.com/news/hiv/mor...

Spoke w/ @apnews.com about HIV funding cuts & the risk of losing a threshold moment toward defeating aids, with the approval of long-acting injectables for HIV prevention.

Join us tonight to protect health & public media, and fight rescission.

The Medicaid cuts in Trump's budget bill are projected to cause more than 16,500 premature deaths ANNUALLY.

Over 1.9 MILLION people could lose access to a physician.

Over 1.3 MILLION people could go without needed medications.

Americans will die for billionaires to thrive.

U.S. agencies supported the global mpox fight & helped overcome hurdles including vax supply & delivery through Jan 2025.

Trump's exec orders freezing foreign aid & work with WHO ended that support.

The White House needs to fix this, rather than let another pandemic spread for no reason at all.

Letter to Bavarian Nordic: Fix Approach to Pricing, Access - Public Citizen (Read more about access and the mpox response).   Paul Chaplin Bavarian Nordic A/S Philip Heymans Alle 3 DK-2900 Hellerup…

MVA-BN is the 2nd-most expensive vaccine UNICEF buys. The U.S. appears to have paid less than UNICEF to stockpile MVA-BN.

$2.4bn in public funding supported MVA-BN's development.

We called on Bavarian Nordic to lower its price and increase supply to UNICEF: www.citizen.org/article/lett...

Africa CDC has a 6.4m dose target & calls the MVA-BN vaccine’s high price a major bottleneck.

UNICEF can't afford the remaining 350,000 doses of its million dose contract, at $65 per dose.

Bavarian Nordic has not responded to calls to lower its price and publish its costs. That needs to change.

African countries fall far short of mpox vaccination targets Continent faces a shortage of doses and distribution challenges

"Africa CDC is “pushing” its member countries to “mobilize domestic resources,” ACDC says, & hoping African companies can soon produce mpox vaccines at affordable prices."

That's needed. @cohenjon.bsky.social

Meanwhile high prices contribute to artificial scarcity.

www.science.org/content/arti...

Mpox Vaccine Shortfall - Public Citizen The MVA-BN mpox vaccine (marketed as “Jynneos” by Bavarian Nordic) is in short supply for the ongoing emergency response in…

We compared supply in Africa now to that of the U.S. during the previous mpox emergency that ran from 2022–3. Africa has 5.7x fewer unallocated doses but 69x more cases, at the same 9-month mark, or about 393x fewer doses per case. www.citizen.org/article/mpox...

Africa has ~400x fewer MVA-BN doses per mpox case than the U.S had at the same 9-month point in the 2022-23 emergency.

That shortfall limits vax ambition & adds to suffering.

WHO just extended the mpox emergency.

But Trump's exec orders block USAID support & work w/WHO.

Some of what's needed:

Mpox Vaccine Manufacturer’s Excessive Price, Trump Administration Cuts Compromise Access - Public Citizen WASHINGTON, D.C. — There are far too few mpox vaccines to support the ongoing disease response in Africa, according to a new…

Thank you Jon.

We estimate that Africa is managing with about 400 times fewer MVA-BN doses per mpox case as the U.S. had at the same point in its 2023 emergency: www.citizen.org/news/mpox-va...

BTW should be clear by now that just talking with drug corporations isn’t going to work. They won’t deal. They have shareholders. You have to legislate.

“Bourla said he was hopeful that, given U.S. pressure on European countries to pay more, prices there could increase.

“…if the U.S. resorts to price controls, Pfizer could consider not making drugs available for reimbursement in some countries if prices don't increase there.”

No drug price pledges by Pfizer, others in talks with US government, Pfizer CEO says Pfizer and other drug companies have met with the Trump administration to discuss lowering U.S. drug prices but no commitments have been made, Chief Executive Albert Bourla said on Monday.

Here’s world-class pharma jerk Bourla just casually threatening countries’ meds access if the U.S. seeks less abusive prices at home.
 
The only way to deal with bullies like this is stand up and fight them.

www.reuters.com/business/hea...

This is a low point.

Trump, having unconstitutionally obliterated foreign aid, asks members of Congress to bless the power he illegally took from them.

Trump’s cuts will save a rounding error, but cost America its credibility and hundreds of thousands of people their lives.

🧭 MPP’s Board & observers met in Geneva this week. Grateful for their expertise and guidance 🙏 — and proud of our team’s professionalism and commitment to impact 💼🌍

#GlobalHealth #MPP #AccessToMedicines

@publiccitizen.bsky.social