Grassley at Cambrex: Importing drugs one answer to costs

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com 

Sen. Charles Grassley shared his prescription for fighting higher drug prices with a roomful of pharmaceutical manufacturing employees Friday in Charles City.

The Iowa Republican took a tour of the Cambrex plant, then sat down for a question-and-answer period with Cambrex workers.

The first question, after Grassley gave a few introductory remarks, involved drug prices.

“One of the things you and the administration have said is the cost of prescription drugs is too high for most Americans,” the questioner said. “Now, being involved in the manufacture of prescription drugs, a lot of people in this room maybe know why the prices are what they are. Can you elaborate as to what the plan is to try to bring that cost to be more affordable?”

Cambrex manufactures a wide range of active pharmaceutical ingredients and intermediates, including highly potent molecules and controlled substances. These are some of the chemicals that other companies use to manufacture patent and generic medications.

Grassley said he had three or four ideas, but legislation is difficult to get passed because of opposition by “Big Pharma” — the large pharmaceutical companies.

He acknowledged that one of the things he favors might not be popular with his audience.

“I support the importation of drugs,” he said, with the provisions that they must pass the same safety and effectiveness guidelines that the Federal Drug Administration has for U.S.-made drugs.

“I think more competition will help. We’re paying for the research for about 75 percent around the world,” Grassley said. “If we have that competition here that’s gonna force our companies to get more money from other people around the world to pay for some of the research.”

Grassley also said he would address the generic drug situation where the patent-holders of some drugs pay generic manufacturers to not sell their drug when the patent runs out. This “pay for delay” process lets the brand name manufacturer continue to sell the higher-priced drugs without competition from generics as soon, he said.

A bill Grassley sponsored with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, would address this, he said.

He also said he would force brand-name drug manufacturers to follow the FDA’s Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy, which is supposed to allow generic manufacturers to purchase samples of name-brand drugs before the patent runs out, so they can have completed FDA testing on their generics and be ready to sell when the patents expire.

A bill he has co-sponsored with Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, would cover this, he said.

Other questions Grassley answered included:

• What is your position on the DACA issue?

“Legalization of DACA kids is my position,” he said, referring to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that President Obama started in 2012 to grant work permits for people who were brought to this country by their undocumented parents. President Trump terminated the program last year, and set a March 5 deadline for Obama’s executive order to be replaced by legislation.

He said he agrees with Trump and a bipartisan group of representatives and senators that immigration reform must include border security, ending ”chain migration” and doing away with the diversity visa lottery in addition to granting a path to citizenship for DACA persons.

“If there’s a bill that falls within those four I’ll be voting yes,” he said. “If there’s a bill that just legalizes DACA and does nothing else, it might get through the Senate but it wouldn’t get through the House.”

• Why are veterans forced to use the Veterans Administration medical system when there are so many other options out there?

Veterans groups oppose offering veterans the choice of using non-VA health care because they are afraid it’s going to weaken the VA system, and the VA system was set up so we could show the veterans they have something special, Grassley said.

With the Veterans’ Choice Program, veterans are supposed to be able to go to their health care provider of choice if they are told they will have to wait more than 30 days for an appointment with the VA, he said, but that program has also had problems.

• What about the cost of health care?

Grassley said being able to sell insurance across state lines and giving more options for association health plans would help.

“Here’s where the experience with Obamacare has caused problems,” he saad. “It was supposed to increase competition and we have only one insurance company in Iowa. If you liked your doctor you were supposed to keep your doctor, and millions of people have had to change doctors. A lot of people had to change their insurance plan. It just didn’t turn out the way they anticipated.

“And now, all of a sudden it’s a Republican problem because we aren’t getting it fixed.” he said. “We were going to try to start over again, but we came up one vote short, so it’s our fault, not your fault. Maybe you weren’t even in favor of what we were trying to do, but we were trying to revamp and make up for the shortcomings of Obamacare.”

• What’s the tenor of the Senate with President Trump polarizing the nation?

Grassley said he disagrees that Trump is the cause of polarization.

“I don’t think he’s doing anything that he ought to be doing to stop the polarization, but I don’t think we should blame him for the polarization,” he said.

“Since we have the internet and Fox News and MSNBC and Facebook and all the social networking, American is polarized at the grassroots,” Grassley said. It’s a much tougher political environment when anyone can share any opinion at a moment’s notice, he said.

“It’s not as bad as you hear — controversy makes news,” he said, but “it’s probably worse now than it has been for a long time.”