The head of the pharmaceutical industry’s biggest lobbying group dismissed growing concerns about high drug prices as negative headlines that “don’t tell the whole story.”
Ken Frazier, chairman of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said during the group’s annual meeting Wednesday in Washington that bad press and bad actors are behind the backlash against the industry. The defense comes as lawmakers on both sides are criticizing the industry for high prices.
Frazier didn’t name names, but several companies have been criticized for raising prices. Chief among them is Turing Pharmaceuticals, which, under former CEO Martin Shkreli, raised the price of a generic anti-malarial drug by 5,000 percent.
However, drug spending on all types, especially for specialty drugs that cover hepatitis C and cancer, is rising and has become a major issue, with several polls showing it a top concern for people.
Overall drug spending increased by 7 percent in 2015 from 2014, rising to $456 billion, according to federal figures released Tuesday.
Those figures also show that drug spending’s share of healthcare spending has grown to nearly 17 percent.
Frazier, the CEO of industry giant Merck, told the room full of pharmaceutical executives they need to improve their interaction with the public.
“We have to do a better job of communicating our value to the media, policymakers and the public,” he said. “We are literally inventing new ways to treat and cure diseases.”
Frazier’s defense of the industry received a hearty endorsement from Andy Slavitt, acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who spoke at the same conference.
“I don’t believe that any industry should be defined by the behavior of its worst actors,” he said. “That is not serious thinking in my view.”
