House Democrats are ramping up pressure on pharmaceutical companies to address marked shortages of critical medications across the healthcare field.
On Wednesday, minority members of the House Oversight Committee sent requests for information to Teva, Pfizer, and Sandoz to address the shortages of various cancer drugs, generic antibiotics, and stimulant medications.
Pfizer is the top producer of oncology medications, including carboplatin, cisplatin, and methotrexate. Periodically in 2023, up to 90% of hospital systems lacked consistent access to these generic cancer medications, forcing oncology practices to ration doses and alter care plans.
“The current oncology drug shortage affects the clinical decision-making process, patient outcomes, and quality of life, and without crucial oncology drugs, cancer patients face severe gaps in their treatments and an increased risk of severe, life-threatening complications,” ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and other committee Democrats wrote to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla.
Democratic members of the committee also questioned Keren Haruvi, president of Sandoz North America, about the current supply patterns of powdered amoxicillin, a vital antibiotic for common childhood bacterial infections.
“Parents, pediatricians, and children depend on amoxicillin to treat a variety of childhood illnesses, from the routine to life-threatening, and antibiotics like amoxicillin are 42% more likely to experience shortages than other prescription medications,” members of the committee wrote.
Raskin and committee Democrats also requested information from Teva Pharmaceuticals CEO Richard Francis regarding recent shortages of Adderall and its generic equivalents, used to treat neurodivergence disorders such as ADHD. An estimated 41 million patients in the United States depend on Adderall or similar generic medication to treat ADD/ADHD symptoms.
Committee Democrats requested written responses and staff briefings by March 6 from each of the three entities to address how they are responding to consumer shortages.
Generic medications that have been available on the commercial market for longer periods of time are more susceptible to shortages compared to more expensive, newer medications due to market incentives.
In September 2023, Sandoz responded to a request for comment on the crisis of generics shortages by saying the problems “will likely continue to increase if the pricing dynamics in the marketplace are not addressed.”
The Biden administration has also ramped up its response to the drug shortage crisis from the executive branch.
Earlier this month, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation into the practices of group purchasing organizations and drug wholesalers, middlemen who supply hospital systems and pharmacies with medications from drug manufacturers.
HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said that the joint effort is part of the Biden administration’s “work to tackle healthcare monopolies and lessen the impact on vulnerable patients.”
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Democrats in the Senate have also recently put pressure on the pharmaceutical companies for high prices of non-generic medications from Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Johnson & Johnson.
“The overwhelming beneficiary of high drug prices in America is the pharmaceutical industry,” Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said in a hearing with the three pharmaceutical giants earlier this month. “The United States government does not regulate drug companies. With a few exceptions, the drug companies regulate the United States government.”
