I’d like to begin by discussing Geoff’s post on the pending legislative proposals designed to combat strategic abuse of drug safety regulations to prevent generic competition. Specifically, I’d like to address the economic incentive structure that is in effect in this highly regulated market.
Like many others, I first noticed the abuse of drug safety regulations to prevent competition when Turing Pharmaceuticals—then led by now infamous CEO Martin Shkreli—acquired the manufacturing rights for the anti-parasitic drug Daraprim, and raised the price of the drug by over 5,000%. The result was a drug that cost $750 per tablet. Daraprim (pyrimethamine) is used to combat malaria and toxoplasma gondii infections in immune-compromised patients, especially those with HIV. The World Health Organization includes Daraprim on its “List of Essential Medicines” as a medicine important to basic health systems. After the huge price hike, the drug was effectively out of reach for many insurance plans and uninsured patients who needed it for the six to eight week course of treatment for toxoplasma gondii infections.
It’s not unusual for drugs to sell at huge multiples above their manufacturing cost. Indeed, a primary purpose of patent law is to allow drug companies to earn sufficient profits to engage in the expensive and risky business of developing new drugs. But Daraprim was first sold in 1953 and thus has been off patent for decades. With no intellectual property protection Daraprim should, theoretically, now be available from generic drug manufactures for only a little above cost. Indeed, this is what we see in the rest of the world. Daraprim is available all over the world for very cheap prices. The per tablet price is 3 rupees (US$0.04) in India, R$0.07 (US$0.02) in Brazil, US$0.18 in Australia, and US$0.66 in the UK.
So what gives in the U.S.? Or rather, what does not give? What in our system of drug distribution has gotten stuck and is preventing generic competition from swooping in to compete down the high price of off-patent drugs like Daraprim? The answer is not market failure, but rather regulatory failure, as Geoff noted in his post. While generics would love to enter a market where a drug is currently selling for high profits, they cannot do so without getting FDA approval for their generic version of the drug at issue. To get approval, a generic simply has to file an Abbreviated New Drug Application (“ANDA”) that shows that its drug is equivalent to the branded drug with which it wants to compete. There’s no need for the generic to repeat the safety and efficacy tests that the brand manufacturer originally conducted. To test for equivalence, the generic needs samples of the brand drug. Without those samples, the generic cannot meet its burden of showing equivalence. This is where the strategic use of regulation can come into play.
Geoff’s post explains the potential abuse of Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (“REMS”). REMS are put in place to require certain safety steps (like testing a woman for pregnancy before prescribing a drug that can cause birth defects) or to restrict the distribution channels for dangerous or addictive drugs. As Geoff points out, there is evidence that a few brand name manufacturers have engaged in bad-faith refusals to provide samples using the excuse of REMS or restricted distribution programs to (1) deny requests for samples, (2) prevent generic manufacturers from buying samples from resellers, and (3) deny generics whose drugs have won approval access to the REMS system that is required for generics to distribute their drugs. Once the FDA has certified that a generic manufacturer can safely handle the drug at issue, there is no legitimate basis for the owners of brand name drugs to deny samples to the generic maker. Expressed worries about liability from entering joint REMS programs with generics also ring hollow, for the most part, and would be ameliorated by the pending legislation.
It’s important to note that this pricing situation is unique to drugs because of the regulatory framework surrounding drug manufacture and distribution. If a manufacturer of, say, an off-patent vacuum cleaner wants to prevent competitors from copying its vacuum cleaner design, it is unlikely to be successful. Even if the original manufacturer refuses to sell any vacuum cleaners to a competitor, and instructs its retailers not to sell either, this will be very difficult to monitor and enforce. Moreover, because of an unrestricted resale market, a competitor would inevitably be able to obtain samples of the vacuum cleaner it wishes to copy. Only patent law can successfully protect against the copying of a product sold to the general public, and when the patent expires, so too will the ability to prevent copying.
Drugs are different. The only way a consumer can resell prescription drugs is by breaking the law. Pills bought from an illegal secondary market would be useless to generics for purposes of FDA approval anyway, because the chain of custody would not exist to prove that the samples are the real thing. This means generics need to get samples from the authorized manufacturer or distribution company. When a drug is subject to a REMS-required restricted distribution program, it is even more difficult, if not impossible, for a generic maker to get samples of the drugs for which it wants to make generic versions. Restricted distribution programs, which are used for dangerous or addictive drugs, by design very tightly control the chain of distribution so that the drugs go only to patients with proper prescriptions from authorized doctors.
A troubling trend has arisen recently in which drug owners put their branded drugs into restricted distribution programs not because of any FDA REMS requirement, but instead as a method to prevent generics from obtaining samples and making generic versions of the drugs. This is the strategy that Turing used before it raised prices over 5,000% on Daraprim. And Turing isn’t the only company to use this strategy. It is being emulated by others, although perhaps not so conspicuously. For instance, in 2015, Valeant Pharmaceuticals completed a hostile takeover of Allergan Pharmaceuticals, with the help of the hedge fund, Pershing Square. Once Valeant obtained ownership of Allergan and its drug portfolio, it adopted restricted distribution programs and raised the prices on its off-patent drugs substantially. It raised the price of two life-saving heart drugs by 212% and 525% respectively. Others have followed suit.
A key component of the strategy to profit from hiking prices on off-patent drugs while avoiding competition from generics is to select drugs that do not currently have generic competitors. Sometimes this is because a drug has recently come off patent, and sometimes it is because the drug is for a small patient population, and thus generics haven’t bothered to enter the market given that brand name manufacturers generally drop their prices to close to cost after the drug comes off patent. But with the strategic control of samples and refusals to allow generics to enter REMS programs, the (often new) owners of the brand name drugs seek to prevent the generic competition that we count on to make products cheap and plentiful once their patent protection expires.
Most brand name drug makers do not engage in withholding samples from generics and abusing restricted distribution and REMS programs. But the few that do cost patients and insurers dearly for important medicines that should be much cheaper once they go off patent. More troubling still is the recent strategy of taking drugs that have been off patent and cheap for years, and abusing the regulatory regime to raise prices and block competition. This growing trend of abusing restricted distribution and REMS to facilitate rent extraction from drug purchasers needs to be corrected.
Two bills addressing this issue are pending in Congress. Both bills (1) require drug companies to provide samples to generics after the FDA has certified the generic, (2) require drug companies to enter into shared REMS programs with generics, (3) allow generics to set up their own REMS compliant systems, and (4) exempt drug companies from liability for sharing products and REMS-compliant systems with generic companies in accordance with the steps set out in the bills. When it comes to remedies, however, the Senate version is significantly better. The penalties provided in the House bill are both vague and overly broad. The bill provides for treble damages and costs against the drug company “of the kind described in section 4(a) of the Clayton Act.” Not only is the application of the Clayton Act unclear in the context of the heavily regulated market for drugs (see Trinko), but treble damages may over-deter reasonably restrictive behavior by drug companies when it comes to distributing dangerous drugs.
The remedies in the Senate version are very well crafted to deter rent seeking behavior while not overly deterring reasonable behavior. The remedial scheme is particularly good, because it punishes most those companies that attempt to make exorbitant profits on drugs by denying generic entry. The Senate version provides as a remedy for unreasonable delay that the plaintiff shall be awarded attorneys’ fees, costs, and the defending drug company’s profits on the drug at issue during the time of the unreasonable delay. This means that a brand name drug company that sells an old drug for a low price and delays sharing only because of honest concern about the safety standards of a particular generic company will not face terribly high damages if it is found unreasonable. On the other hand, a company that sends the price of an off-patent drug soaring and then attempts to block generic entry will know that it can lose all of its rent-seeking profits, plus the cost of the victorious generic company’s attorneys fees. This vastly reduces the incentive for the company owning the brand name drug to raise prices and keep competitors out. It likewise greatly increases the incentive of a generic company to enter the market and–if it is unreasonably blocked–to file a civil action the result of which would be to transfer the excess profits to the generic. This provides a rather elegant fix to the regulatory gaming in this area that has become an increasing problem. The balancing of interests and incentives in the Senate bill should leave many congresspersons feeling comfortable to support the bill.