Speaker 1: Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day on since
Speaker 1: coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. Our main story. Big
Speaker 1: Pharma hopes the race to treat COVID nineteen will help
Speaker 1: give drug makers a brand new image and help you
Speaker 1: forget about the price of drugs. But first, here's what
Speaker 1: happened in virus news today. The worst is yet to come.
Speaker 1: That's the message from World Health Organization head tadrus Adnam
Speaker 1: Gabrie at a briefing in Geneva today, just about six
Speaker 1: months after the w h O became aware of the virus.
Speaker 1: He said some countries are having a resurgence of the outbreak.
Speaker 1: The America's account for half of all deaths, and there
Speaker 1: is no global solidarity around the disease. Tad said, quote
Speaker 1: this virus can be suppressed and contained using the tools
Speaker 1: at hand end quote, and countries shouldn't wait for a
Speaker 1: vaccine to deal with it. He also said, quote if
Speaker 1: any country is saying that contact tracing is difficult, it
Speaker 1: is a lame excuse end quote. Worldwide deaths from the
Speaker 1: virus surpassed five hundred thousand, and confirmed cases exceeded ten million.
Speaker 1: In New York, officials are reconsidering a plan to allow
Speaker 1: indoor dining beginning July six. Other states have blamed reopening
Speaker 1: restaurants and bars for surge in COVID nineteen cases. Mayor
Speaker 1: build a Blasio said the city and state will make
Speaker 1: a decision within the next few days. As how officials
Speaker 1: are increasingly concerned. One statistic is growing at an alarming
Speaker 1: pace in some US hotspots, the rate of positive cases.
Speaker 1: In Florida, thirteen point seven percent of people tested for
Speaker 1: the virus came up positive on Monday, a jump of
Speaker 1: over one percentage point from the previous day, and Texas
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen positive test rate searched to more than fourteen percent,
Speaker 1: the highest yet for the state. And now for our
Speaker 1: main story, Gilead Sciences announced today that it will charge
Speaker 1: the US government and other developed countries three hundred and
Speaker 1: ninety dollars per vile for its coronavirus fighting drug Remdessevere.
Speaker 1: That begins to answer a big question as drug company's
Speaker 1: race to find treatments and develop vaccines for the virus.
Speaker 1: How much will it cost us? But drug companies in
Speaker 1: the wake of the pandemic hope people will stop paying
Speaker 1: so much attention to the cost of medicine. Riley, Griffin
Speaker 1: and m a Court report that the pharmaceutical industry is
Speaker 1: hoping COVID nineteen will give it a chance to rebrand
Speaker 1: from price gougers to life savers. The drug industry is
Speaker 1: disliked more than any other sector, including lawyers, the gas industry,
Speaker 1: and the federal government, according to a Gallop poll that
Speaker 1: boils down to one reason, drug pricing, which is increasingly
Speaker 1: prompted outrage from politicians and patients. The US pays the
Speaker 1: most for prescription medications of any country in the world,
Speaker 1: in part because the government doesn't negotiate drug prices like
Speaker 1: many others and the country's healthcare system is more fragmented.
Speaker 1: But the pharmaceutical industry hopes that the COVID and King
Speaker 1: crisis will turn around it's bad reputation. Here's Spencer Perlman,
Speaker 1: director of healthcare research at the consultancy of Beta Partners,
Speaker 1: who has long been covering the drug price debate. A
Speaker 1: lot of Americans are now changing their mind, at least
Speaker 1: for right now, about how they view the pharmaceutical industry.
Speaker 1: I mean, the pharmaceutical industry was about as popular as
Speaker 1: mass murders a few months ago, and they are you know,
Speaker 1: their their popularity, if you will, has increased pretty substantially.
Speaker 1: UM And I think a lot of that has to
Speaker 1: do with the fact that, again, these are massive companies
Speaker 1: that when they want to can develop miracles. May just
Speaker 1: it's a fact that cutting edge science is what the
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical industry would prefer to talk about. Case in point
Speaker 1: Michelle McMurray Heath. She's the new leader of the Biotechnology
Speaker 1: in Ovation Organization, a powerful trade group in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Michelle's background is in science and regulation rather than lobbying,
Speaker 1: and she was initially reluctant to take the job. As
Speaker 1: an m d, pH D, former U S regulator and
Speaker 1: most recently VP at Johnson and Johnson. She's the perfect
Speaker 1: representative of the new image Farmer wants to convey advocates
Speaker 1: for good medicine rather than wielders of political power. I'm
Speaker 1: not a typical lobbyist. If that's what you're looking for
Speaker 1: for this role, I think you have the wrong girl.
Speaker 1: You know what I am is a person who understands
Speaker 1: and believes in the power of science, and I'm a
Speaker 1: committed and um engaged advocate for science. That's what I
Speaker 1: bring to the role, and they looked to me and said, well, actually,
Speaker 1: our entire search is about changing the national dialogue. Michelle
Speaker 1: says she was convinced and saw the job as an
Speaker 1: opportunity to advocate for cutting edge science that would fundamentally
Speaker 1: change the lives of patients. Proposals aimed at reforming drug
Speaker 1: pricing could endanger that innovative medicine. She says. The industry
Speaker 1: has long made this argument, but it takes on a
Speaker 1: particular resonance with the whole world betting that pharmaceutical companies
Speaker 1: can get us out of this public health disaster. It's
Speaker 1: been clear that in recent years there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of public misunderstanding about what biotechnology has been attempting to
Speaker 1: do for for the country, for human health, for the
Speaker 1: food supply, for the environment. UM we are not among
Speaker 1: the most trusted quarters of the culture, and if we
Speaker 1: don't have a strong and vibrant biotechnology UM ecosystem, we
Speaker 1: are not going to be prepared to combat this crisis,
Speaker 1: or any of the crisis we are likely to face
Speaker 1: in the coming years and decades. It is the critical
Speaker 1: lover to move us forward, and I think that's becoming
Speaker 1: clearer now than it has ever been. Now Michelle, the
Speaker 1: Biotechnology Innovation Organization and its member companies are making this
Speaker 1: pitch to the American public. Earlier this month, the organization
Speaker 1: drew thousands to a digital conference that featured headliners like
Speaker 1: Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and
Speaker 1: Infectious Diseases, on a panel about how to win the
Speaker 1: war on COVID through such drug development efforts. Meanwhile, Johnson
Speaker 1: and Johnson has been streaming an eight part series on
Speaker 1: its own road to a vaccine. The industry's largest trade organization,
Speaker 1: the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, has even taken
Speaker 1: out e v ads with a heavy handed tagline, science
Speaker 1: is how we get back to normal. The pharmaceutical industries
Speaker 1: villainous reputation wasn't built in a day. Criticism about high
Speaker 1: US drug prices has mounted for decades. In recent years,
Speaker 1: a series of crises paired with broader changes in US healthcare,
Speaker 1: like greater exposure to high deductible health plans, kicked it
Speaker 1: into high gear. Generic drugmaker Mylens years of price hikes
Speaker 1: on allergic reaction treatment EpiPen exploded into an affordability crisis
Speaker 1: as parents stocked up on them during back to school season.
Speaker 1: More recently, individuals with diabetes have struggled to afford life
Speaker 1: saving insulin, even though the drug has been around for
Speaker 1: nearly a hundred years. The drug industry argues that what's
Speaker 1: happening isn't their fault. Instead, they point a finger at
Speaker 1: health and sures and other players in the supply chain,
Speaker 1: like pharmacy middlemen. But advocate Margarita George, campaign director for
Speaker 1: the Coalition Lower Drug Prices Now, says there are clear
Speaker 1: lessons to take away from all this history. This is
Speaker 1: an industry that we couldn't trust on insulin. We couldn't
Speaker 1: trust them on EpiPens. We couldn't trust them on prep
Speaker 1: true VADA or HIV medicines. We can't trust them on HEPC.
Speaker 1: Why on earth would we think that we could trust
Speaker 1: the prescription drug industry to create a vaccine that then
Speaker 1: they would price at a fair rate that everybody could
Speaker 1: get access to. The U S government has also poured
Speaker 1: billions of dollars into pharmaceutical companies for the development and
Speaker 1: manufacturing of new treatments and vaccines. That makes for even
Speaker 1: thorn in your questions about how much COVID nineteen products
Speaker 1: should cost, because it's not just company taking on the
Speaker 1: financial risk of making new drugs, it's taxpayers too. The
Speaker 1: first test came this week with Gillads Roum Desiviere. The
Speaker 1: company came out with two price tags. It will charge
Speaker 1: the US government and other developed countries about three nine
Speaker 1: dollars of vile. Private US health insurers and other commercial payers, though,
Speaker 1: will pay a higher price five dollars of vile. Guilliad
Speaker 1: says most patients will need only five days of treatment,
Speaker 1: putting the total price roughly in line with a cost
Speaker 1: effectiveness threshold for the drug set by an independent nonprofit
Speaker 1: called the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review that the
Speaker 1: cost for commercial payers on a five day course will
Speaker 1: run somewhat over. In a statement on Monday, Steve Pearson,
Speaker 1: Iser's founder and president, said Gillad's price tag was quote
Speaker 1: reasonably cost effective and end quote demonstrates restraint and a
Speaker 1: promising precedent for future drug pricing during a pandemic end quote.
Speaker 1: But he also said the conversation about ram Dezevier's price
Speaker 1: wasn't over and should be reassessed as we learn about
Speaker 1: how well the medicine works. The drug pricing debate continues
Speaker 1: on in Washington, d C. Though many see today's public
Speaker 1: health crisis stymying a bipartisan package geared at penalizing drug
Speaker 1: makers for price hikes. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley,
Speaker 1: a co sponsor of the bill, told us it's not
Speaker 1: off the table, at least not yet. The Iowa Republican
Speaker 1: is pushing for the policies to make it into the
Speaker 1: next package of coronavirus relief. That was Riley Griffin and
Speaker 1: Emma Court. Their story on Big Farmers Big Rebranding can
Speaker 1: be read in the June issue of Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: or on Bloomberg dot com. And that's it for our show.
Speaker 1: A reminder, starting this week, the Prognosis Update will be
Speaker 1: coming to you on Monday's, Wednesdays and Friday's, so there
Speaker 1: will be no show tomorrow. For coverage of the outbreak
Speaker 1: from one and twenty bureaus around the world, visit Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot com Flash Coronavirus and if you like the show,
Speaker 1: please leave us a review and a rating on Apple
Speaker 1: Podcasts or Spotify. It's the best way to help more
Speaker 1: listeners find our global reporting. The Prognosis Daily edition is
Speaker 1: produced by Tophor foreheads Jordan Gaspore, Magnus Hendrickson, and me
Speaker 1: Laura Carlson. Today's main story was reported by Riley Griffin
Speaker 1: and Emma Court. Original music by Leo Sigrin. Our editors
Speaker 1: are Rick Shine and Francesca Levi. Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's
Speaker 1: head of podcasts. Thanks for listening.