Speaker 1: Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day eighty four
Speaker 1: since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. Our main story.
Speaker 1: Dozens of pharmaceutical companies are pouring resources into developing new
Speaker 1: drugs that can help blunt the effects of the pandemic,
Speaker 1: but the outbreak has halted the momentum behind a bill
Speaker 1: that would slow the rising price of such drugs. Still,
Speaker 1: Senator Chuck Grassley told Bloomberg he believes drug price reform
Speaker 1: isn't dead yet. But first, here's what happened today. Protests
Speaker 1: against police violence continued in every state in the US
Speaker 1: and some cities around the world. Some protesters defied US
Speaker 1: city curfews, but demonstrate raiders were overwhelmingly peaceful. Still, President
Speaker 1: Donald Trump on Wednesday urged police to get tough and
Speaker 1: appeared to double down on his support for the use
Speaker 1: of greater force to quell protests. The pandemic isn't finished
Speaker 1: with the US labor market. Economists believe a second wave
Speaker 1: of job cuts is around the corner, and this one
Speaker 1: will hit white collar workers particularly hard. Close to six
Speaker 1: million jobs are potentially on the line, according to Bloomberg Economics,
Speaker 1: that includes higher paid supervisors in sectors where frontline workers
Speaker 1: were hit first, such as restaurants in hotels. Industries connected
Speaker 1: to those service sectors will also see a knock on effect,
Speaker 1: like professional services, finance, and real estate. The extent and
Speaker 1: details of the spillover job cuts will start to reveal
Speaker 1: themselves Friday, when the government releases its May employment report.
Speaker 1: The unemployment rate probably soared to nineteen point five, the
Speaker 1: highest since the Great Depression. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo
Speaker 1: declared victory over the coronavirus pandemic, touting the lowest daily
Speaker 1: death toll and hospitalization rate since it began, but in Florida,
Speaker 1: cases jumped the most in nearly two weeks. Florida began
Speaker 1: a phased reopening on May four, and now our main story.
Speaker 1: The drug industry has been pouring resources into researching and
Speaker 1: developing treatments and vaccines for COVID nineteen that has helped
Speaker 1: quiet a long running debate over rising prescription costs. The
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical industry hopes that efforts to reform drug pricing, which
Speaker 1: had bipartisan support before the pandemic, are now dead, But
Speaker 1: Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley insists that the long
Speaker 1: delayed drug price bill he is co sponsoring will get
Speaker 1: a vote this year. The bill would limit drug price increases.
Speaker 1: Grasslely worries that if the bill doesn't pass, drugmakers will
Speaker 1: charge whatever they want for COVID nineteen related drugs and
Speaker 1: the Court and Riley Griffin spoke to Senator Grassley about
Speaker 1: what coronavirus means for his efforts to stem the rising
Speaker 1: price of drugs. So, Riley and Emma, can you tell
Speaker 1: us a bit about this drug price bill that the
Speaker 1: senators vonagon It is a co authored bill by Senator
Speaker 1: Chuck Grassley and Democratic Senator Ron Wyden. One key component
Speaker 1: of this bill is what some call an inflation cap,
Speaker 1: others call an inflation rebate, but it would ultimately penalize
Speaker 1: drugmakers that raise prices past the rate of inflation. That
Speaker 1: is one of the sticking points of this bill. It's
Speaker 1: one that has a little bit more disagreement within the committee,
Speaker 1: but ultimately what makes it so novel um, but there's
Speaker 1: been a slow burn in getting this across the finish line.
Speaker 1: We haven't yet seen this bill introduced by Mitch McConnell
Speaker 1: to the to the broader Senate. But M and I
Speaker 1: spoke with Senator Chuck Grassley about his bill, which many
Speaker 1: have considered dead. To be quite frank, it's missed a
Speaker 1: couple of key deadlines. He suggests that this bill is
Speaker 1: not dead. In fact, it has more potentially momentum than
Speaker 1: ever as we look forward and consider affordability questions related
Speaker 1: to the coronavirus. So, the price of drugs has been
Speaker 1: a hot button topic in America for years. Why are
Speaker 1: we hearing about this bill now? In some corners of
Speaker 1: this debate, you know, the perspective is that drug pricing
Speaker 1: is is kind of this debate is over right. COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen has sort of, you know, many people have said,
Speaker 1: sucked the oxygen out of the room. I mean, we're
Speaker 1: basically plowing as many as resources as possible into trying
Speaker 1: to alleviate the health as well as economic impact of
Speaker 1: this pandemic. In many ways, the Republicans and Democrats have
Speaker 1: have been talking about drug pricing for years, haven't reached
Speaker 1: a consensus, even though Americans have, you know, said for
Speaker 1: a long time they're worried about the price of their medication.
Speaker 1: They're worried about whether they can afford to keep taking
Speaker 1: the medication. You know, we've been talking about drug pricing
Speaker 1: for so long nothing has happened. Can we really do
Speaker 1: anything now that there's a pandemic on um But you know,
Speaker 1: when Riley and I spoke with Chuck Grassley, the senators
Speaker 1: sort of said, this is the right time to address it.
Speaker 1: Right the need for drugs affordability is still central to
Speaker 1: our conversation. It also highlights the need to act for
Speaker 1: the next pandemic right now. There's nothing to stop bad
Speaker 1: actors in the pharmaceutical industry from hiking prices astronomically when
Speaker 1: the next pandemic would hit. So there's no reason whatsoever
Speaker 1: for delay of our legislation given that we are so
Speaker 1: reliant on the pharmaceutical industry to make these vaccines and
Speaker 1: therapeutics that will hopefully get us out of this public
Speaker 1: health crisis. And I thought that was a really interesting point.
Speaker 1: But I think you know a lot of folks who
Speaker 1: have been watching this would would probably disagree with him
Speaker 1: about the feasibility of getting legislation passed at this moment.
Speaker 1: So I am wondering on that point. With the new
Speaker 1: relevance of vaccine therapeutics, as you mentioned, for COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1: Are there elements in that bill that will specifically address
Speaker 1: these What Senator Chuck Grassley had said was fundamentally, those
Speaker 1: provisions do impact any pharmaceutical, whether it's a vaccine, whether
Speaker 1: it's a therapeutic. It's not necessarily limited to COVID nineteen treatments,
Speaker 1: but it touches diabetes, it touches cancer therapies, it touches immunology, drugs,
Speaker 1: um and very much so when we have this conversation,
Speaker 1: for the most part, um it's about branded drugs, right,
Speaker 1: not your off patent generics which account for nine and
Speaker 1: ten medicines in in your cabinets, but newer drugs coming
Speaker 1: to market with pricier tags. Regardless, healthcare is the number
Speaker 1: one issues for voters. We know that going into the
Speaker 1: presidential election, healthcare has taken the number one slot. It
Speaker 1: is interesting to consider whether or not the drug pricing
Speaker 1: debate itself will shift in the wake of the coronavirus,
Speaker 1: whether or not you'll see lawmakers take a more sympathetic
Speaker 1: view in their relationships with the pharmaceutical industry, because remember
Speaker 1: that relationship between Washington and Fharma had been quite antagonistic
Speaker 1: up until this point, I think it's important to point
Speaker 1: out also, you know, when we're talking about the Grassley
Speaker 1: Widen Bill, for instance, that we're the focus here is
Speaker 1: is really on restricting how much drug companies can increase prices. Right.
Speaker 1: So there's this sort of almost annual or bi annual
Speaker 1: tradition of of drug companies raising the prices of their
Speaker 1: drugs in January and then again in the summer. And
Speaker 1: this is what Grassley is really talking about in this bill.
Speaker 1: He says that you know, we asked him, are you
Speaker 1: worried about what will happen with the pricing of COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen products? And he said, without the Grassley Widen bill
Speaker 1: is wild country. Whatever they want to price, said that
Speaker 1: they're going to because look at what happened January of
Speaker 1: this year, these fabulous increases in drugs. It's a wild West.
Speaker 1: Another words, he said, drug companies could charge whatever they
Speaker 1: want to. But the reality is that this bill is
Speaker 1: really focused on sort of what happens after drug companies
Speaker 1: price their product. Um. I would also sort of note
Speaker 1: that in some ways the conversation about drug pricing and
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen is is almost academic and largely theoretical at
Speaker 1: this point, you know, we really haven't gotten to a
Speaker 1: point where we have you know, enough products that have
Speaker 1: been you know, approved for COVID nineteen that are are
Speaker 1: thought to be really helpful that that where we're going
Speaker 1: to have this kind of UM conversation really aired out.
Speaker 1: Is there a concern at all about the election potentially
Speaker 1: delaying the passing of this bill. Absolutely. I think that
Speaker 1: the expectation of the committee was first to have this
Speaker 1: done earlier in the year. UM. When I spoke with
Speaker 1: folks in Washington close to this bill last fall, for example,
Speaker 1: the hard stop I was given was May, and we've
Speaker 1: passed that point. Right. The new date that's being floated
Speaker 1: is September. I think the closest the closer you get
Speaker 1: to the election cycle, the more this becomes a politically
Speaker 1: charged package. Right. There really has to be the perfect
Speaker 1: storm to get this bill across the finish line before
Speaker 1: the election, and I would say more people than not
Speaker 1: are somewhat skeptical that that storm will come into play
Speaker 1: in this really tight timeline. I would also kind of
Speaker 1: note that, Um, what we heard from Chuck Grassley, which
Speaker 1: I thought was quite interesting, was he said, you know,
Speaker 1: pharma should want what we're doing here, because ultimately, you know,
Speaker 1: if Democrats come into power and d c um come September,
Speaker 1: you know they're going to be proposing really aggressive of
Speaker 1: changes to drug pricing. And I would think that Big
Speaker 1: Farmer would think in terms of keeping a Republican president
Speaker 1: and a Republican majority in Congress pretty important because if
Speaker 1: we have a Democrat president and we have a Democratic Congress,
Speaker 1: which means that the government is going to be very
Speaker 1: deeply involved in setting drug prices. We've seen both Republicans
Speaker 1: and Democrats talk about drug pricing a lot, especially in
Speaker 1: recent years, but their visions of sort of how it
Speaker 1: should change are are very different. And finally, I did
Speaker 1: want to just circle back to a point both of
Speaker 1: you raised, but I was hoping that you might be
Speaker 1: able to dig deeper on it about overall the pharmaceutical
Speaker 1: industry's reaction to this proposed bill. What what what is
Speaker 1: their reaction? I think the pharmaceutical industry, the lobby companies,
Speaker 1: would say a lot of the rising drug costs aren't
Speaker 1: actually attributable to those who manufacture the drugs, but to
Speaker 1: those that are outside of their control, and they'd like
Speaker 1: to see some changes made there, but this question, for example,
Speaker 1: of the inflation cap, that's not something that industry supports,
Speaker 1: there adamantly against it. And so if a delay is
Speaker 1: here to seeing the Senate Finance Committee bill pass as is,
Speaker 1: that won't necessarily come as bad news too many as
Speaker 1: the CEO of BIO the excuse me, the incoming CEO
Speaker 1: of BIO another trade organization said to US, any drug
Speaker 1: pricing reform that existed prior to this pandemic is quote
Speaker 1: obsolete um. And that's a that's a very interesting and
Speaker 1: compelling perspective because it suggests that we have to start
Speaker 1: from scratch um. And I think that lawmakers like Senator
Speaker 1: Grassley would be fairly opposed to the notion. And with
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen, you know, being such a huge kind of
Speaker 1: factor is the fact that the industry is really benefiting
Speaker 1: in terms of public perception. So people have been up
Speaker 1: in arms about the prices of drugs for years in
Speaker 1: the US, and suddenly, you know, we're turning to the
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical industry and saying, can you please come up with
Speaker 1: a vaccine and some several vaccines and drugs so that
Speaker 1: we can kind of get out of this whole situation.
Speaker 1: I think you know you're going to see that be
Speaker 1: a really powerful tool shaping discourse, you know, in the
Speaker 1: coming months. That was m The Court and Riley Griffin.
Speaker 1: And that's our show today. For coverage of the outbreak
Speaker 1: from one D and twenty bureaus around the world, visit
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com slash Coronavirus and if you like the show,
Speaker 1: please leave us a review and a rating on Apple
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Speaker 1: listeners find our global reporting. The Prognosis Daily edition is
Speaker 1: produced by Tobah Foreheads, Jordan Gaspure, Magnus Hendrickson and me
Speaker 1: Laura Carlson. Today's main story was reported by Emma Court
Speaker 1: and Riley Griffin. Original music by Leo Sidran. Our editors
Speaker 1: are Francesca Levi and Rick Shine. Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's
Speaker 1: head of podcasts. Thanks for listening.