Will your election candidates back the call for fairer pharma?
The medical research and development system is broken. Sky-high drug prices are leaving patients without access for years at a time, while pharmaceutical companies rake in billions in profit and literally bin medicines rather than sell them to the NHS at an affordable price.
An election is just around the corner - on Thursday 12th December. Will you join the call for fairer pharma by putting the following question to your election candidates:
Do you back the government to break monopolies if companies aren’t offering their medicines to the NHS at a price it can afford?
Don’t know who your election candidates are? Just click here to find names and contact details via the Democracy Club website.
Time and again we see drug companies exploit the monopolies they hold on new drugs, granted to them in the form of patents, to demand that our NHS pays sky-high prices. And it’s patients who suffer, being forced to wait years for drugs - like the cystic fibrosis drug Orkambi which was unavailable on the NHS for four years.
Both Labour and the Conservative parties moved in response to our campaign to make Orkambi available on the NHS. The Conservatives admitted they had a moral obligation to explore breaking the patent on the medicine, and set their officials to work exploring how to do it. Labour went further, committing to in their manifesto to using Crown Use licences to overturn patents where they are being unfairly exploited by drug companies. The Lib Dems have so far been silent on the issue.
Patients should never be held to ransom by drug companies - if a drug exists it should be made available to those who need it. That’s why a legal tool called a Crown Use licence exists - to allow governments to overturn corporate patents where these stand in the way of access to medicines.
Resources for election candidates
If your election candidates are interested in finding out more on the background to the problems with the medical R&D system they may find the following briefing helpful:
Fixing pharmaceutical innovation to deliver for the NHS and the economy (opens in PDF)
The potential risks of a US-UK Free Trade Agreement for drug pricing have been hitting the news. This short briefing explains the risks for candidates who want to know more:
US-UK Free Trade Agreement and access to medicines (opens in PDF)
Did you get a reply to your question? Let us know - drop us a line organise@justtreatment.org