Thursday, Dec. 5, 2019 | 2 a.m.
View more of the Sun's opinion section
Transparency in drug pricing and drug price advocacy is important. When Nevada created a landmark diabetes drug pricing law, our Legislature included a requirement that health care nonprofits must disclose donations from entities involved in drug pricing, including drug manufacturers and Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).
In his Nov. 21 guest column “How to tackle our diabetes epidemic,” Dr. Kenneth Thorpe, president of the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease, explained why transparency is so important.
Thorpe opined that instead of working to lower the price of life-saving insulin, capping its price or providing transparency into insulin pricing, Nevada legislators should focus on policies that keep people from developing diabetes and encourage people with diabetes to lead a “healthy lifestyle.” This is misleading, as Type 1 diabetes is not a “lifestyle” disease but an unavoidable, incurable autoimmune disorder often diagnosed in childhood in which the patient requires insulin injections to live.
Thorpe leaves out information that sheds light on his misleading statements about Nevadans who need insulin to survive: PhRMA, the drug manufacturers’ lobbying association, is the parent organization of Thorpe’s group, Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease (PFCD). In fact, in 2017, PFCD and PhRMA shared a Washington, D.C., office address. Sadly, we don’t know precisely how PFCD is funded, as it does not have to disclose where its $3.5 million-plus budget comes from. However, of the group’s disclosed partner organizations, eight are pharmaceutical companies.
The Nevada Legislature is working to address high drug prices because of statistics like those in a recent Yale study that found 1 in 4 people with Type 1 diabetes ration their insulin due to its price. It is here where Thorpe’s suggestion that people could be healthier, eat differently and exercise to avoid diabetes falls apart. One-hundred percent of Type 1 diabetes patients need insulin injections to survive, as a person with Type 1 diabetes lives with a pancreas that does not produce insulin.
There is no lifestyle modification that can prevent or cure Type 1 diabetes.
Rationing insulin because of its price puts Nevadans’ lives on the line. Patients today pay more than $320 per vial of insulin, a price that has nearly doubled or in some cases quadrupled over the past decade. Most insulin-dependent patients need two to four vials per month to survive. Imagine not being able to pay for the insulin you need to stay alive. In a country as rich as ours, it’s unconscionable.
A price cap on insulin is necessary, and the righteous thing to do.
Groups like Thorpe’s advocate for policies that do not address drug manufacturers and ultimately do not lower the price of a drug. Proposals that address drug pricing “middlemen,” more accurately named pharmacy benefit managers, or create co-pay caps, for example, ignore that drug manufacturers are able to set costs and often control negotiations. Policies like the ones Thorpe proposes are akin to chopping branches and hoping that will kill a tree; without addressing the roots, it will only continue to grow.
Nevada has led the country on creating comprehensive drug pricing laws. We will continue to ensure we create thoughtful policies that put patients and their interests first. We have a responsibility to do so.
State Sen. Yvanna Cancela was appointed in 2016 to the Nevada Senate’s 10th District seat, and was elected to the seat in 2018.
