STUDENTS ASK THEIR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS: WILL YOU VOTE TO TRICK OR TREAT PATIENTS?

For Immediate Release

Kim Cunningham, American Medical Student Association (AMSA), Phone: (781) 223-4042 pr at amsa.org

Ethan Guillen, Director, Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM)
Phone: (775) 287-2553 ethan.guillen at essentialmedicine.org

MEDICAL AND UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS IN DC, BALTIMORE, PALO ALTO AND RALEIGH ASK THEIR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS:
WILL YOU VOTE TO TRICK OR TREAT PATIENTS?

Today, students from the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) and Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) AffordableMedsNow.org campaign — some wearing their ghostly white lab coats — will visit the offices of legislators across the country to give out “treats” and urge them not to “trick” the nation’s patients with a fake generic biologic drugs proposal that will actually block price-lowering generic competition and access to life-saving biologic medicines. Events are planned in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Raleigh N.C. and Palo Alto, Calif.

Current proposals contained in Senate and House healthcare reform legislation that purport to create a pathway to allow affordable biogenerics to come to market will in fact do the opposite, creating only the illusion of generic competition for most biologics. But if these proposals are improved in critical ways, they could save American consumers and taxpayers $71 billion or more in the first decade alone.

“As future physicians we want to ensure that life-saving generic biologic drugs are made affordable and accessible to our patients,” says Dr. Lauren Hughes, MPH, AMSA national president. “We are calling upon Congress to fix the biogenerics proposals in the healthcare reform bills because they currently do not promote access to these very high priced and important medicines.”

Biologics are special medicines derived from living cells. They include most vaccines and the majority of anti-cancer agents and treatments for multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis. Biologics are the fastest growing segment of the prescription drug market, and are predicted to soon be 50 percent of new drug approvals. The pharmaceutical industry charges 22 times more on average for biologics than other drugs, event though they cost about the same to develop. Examples include breast cancer drug Herceptin which is priced at $37,000 per patient per year and Humira, used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease, which is priced at $50,000 annually. Already, the top six selling biologics make up over 40 percent of the Medicare Part B spending.

“Almost everyone knows someone affected by cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, or kidney failure,” says Jane Andrews, a UAEM medical and public health student at Johns Hopkins University who is an organizing today’s event at Senator Barbara Mikulski’s Baltimore office. “Public health professionals like myself see patients every day who lack access to biologic drugs to treat these conditions because of their exorbitant prices. This is why the AffordableMedsNow.org campaign has gathered such strong support from medical students across the country in such a short period of time. We know that unless major improvements are made to the biogenerics proposals currently before Congress, huge numbers of our patients will never be able to afford the lifesaving biologic medicines they need.”

You can find more information on the campaign at http://www.AffordableMedsNOW.org.

Media Contact for Baltimore, MD event: Jane Andrews, Student Organizer; Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, (513) 807-0394, jandrews at jhsph.edu

Media Contact for Palo Alto, CA event: Connie Chen, Student Co-Organizer; (626) 806-3705, Conn.Chen at gmail.com

Media Contact for Raleigh, NC event Quang Pham, Student Organizer, UNC-Chapel Hill; Phone: (704) 763–0170, quang_pham at med.unc.edu

Media Contact for Washington, DC event: Laura Musselwhite, AMSA and UAEM Student Organizer; (336) 908-6635; laura.musselwhite at gmail.com

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About Universities Allied for Essential Medicines

Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) is a coalition of students at over 50 top research institutions across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany. UAEM’s mission is to ensure that people in developing countries have access to medicines developed in universities and that university medical research addresses the needs of the majority of the world’s population. As an organization which values innovation, we work to empower students to find new ways to improve access to health throughout the world. http://www.essentialmedicine.org.

About the American Medical Student Association

The American Medical Student Association (AMSA), with more than a half-century history of medical student activism, is the oldest and largest independent association of physicians-in-training in the United States. Founded in 1950, AMSA is a student-governed, non-profit organization committed to representing the concerns of physicians-in-training. With more than 62,000 members, including medical and premedical students, residents and practicing physicians, AMSA is committed to improving medical training as well as advancing the profession of medicine. To learn more about AMSA, our strategic priorities, or joining the organization, please visit us online at http://www.amsa.org/.