Grassley, Klobuchar continue push to drive down drug costs

While efforts stalled last year, U.S. Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., say they have new confidence a pair of bills they are pushing forward can pass this Congress and help Americans save millions each month on prescription drug costs.

The bills — the Preserve Access to Affordable Generics and Biosimilars Act and the Stop STALLING Act — recently passed the Senate Judiciary Committee with strong bipartisan support.

“These bills were part of a tranche of proposals that were unanimously approved by the Judiciary Committee,” Grassley said during a Thursday conference call with reporters. “Congress needs to finish the job so these bills can help consumers.”

The bills would limit larger pharmaceutical companies from trying to keep generic forms of certain prescription drugs from going to market. In some cases, Klobuchar and Grassley say, the bigger companies pay the generic drugmakers to keep the cheaper products off store shelves or even try to stop the approval process.

Grassley said the Preserve Access to Affordable Generics and Biosimilars Act would limit “pay-for-delay” deals that prevent or delay the introduction of affordable generic and similar versions of branded pharmaceuticals. Under such deals, pharmaceutical drug companies pay brand name companies to delay the introduction of cheaper substitutes, increasing the cost of prescriptions and imposing significant costs on the health care system, said Klobuchar, who joined Grassley on the call.

The Stop STALLING Act would deter pharmaceutical companies from filing what Klobuchar called “sham” petitions with the Food and Drug Administration to interfere with the approval of generic and biosimilar medicines that compete with their own brand name products, a tactic she said delays patient access to more affordable medications.

Klobuchar said the legislation could save Americans over $730 million a year in prescription drug costs, according to an analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

“I know that the pharmaceutical companies are working hard to halt our progress, but we have gotten the year off to a really great start,” Klobuchar said. “I think this is the earliest we’ve passed the bills out of committee, giving us a whole two years to push them through.”

Minnesota and Iowa residents who have been impacted by high prescription drug prices joined Grassley and Klobuchar on the call.

Jessica Intermill, a Minnesota woman in her 40s, said she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis when she was pregnant more than a decade ago. “My body turns on itself, it attacks my joints and eats holes into my bones,” Intermill said. “It’s incredibly painful. I didn’t even trust myself to hold my infant.”

She said she found relief in daily injections but, even with insurance coverage, the cost of the prescription is $4,400 a month — roughly equal to paying the cost of three statewide average monthly mortgage payments a month.

Kathy Anderson, of LeClaire, said with insurance coverage through her employer and a drug coupon she paid $45 for one-month supply of eye drops for a “severe eye disease.” But, once she retired and enrolled in a Medicare supplement plan, the cost spiked to $377. Because she was on Medicare, she no longer qualified for the prescription drug discount.

Due to the cost, Anderson said she was forced to ration the drops, spacing them out, “instead of taking them as prescribed.”

A nurse manager eventually directed her to a lower-cost drug that she now takes, and the FDA recently approved a generic version she said she will be considering.

Grassley has been criticized for voting against an amendment to the Inflation Reduction Act signed into law last year by President Joe Biden that would have capped the cost of insulin at $35 a month, as well as for his role in the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, which overhauled prescription drug policies but also stopped Medicare from negotiating prescription drug prices — an ability it now has under the new federal law, which Grassley voted against.

Grassley said affordable medication has long been a priority, including pushing for an investigation into insulin “price-gouging” and going after the “opaque” operations of pharmacy benefit managers “that push prices higher.”

The Inflation Reduction Act also requires drug companies to pay rebates to Medicare if prices rise faster than inflation for drugs used by Medicare beneficiaries.

“While we have made headway on Medicare negotiation, that is just the beginning,” Klobuchar said. “There are so many other things that need to be done.”

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