NOVEMBER 29, 2019

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Submitted to AbbVie, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Gilead Sciences, Janssen Therapeutics, Merck, and ViiV Healthcare
 

The undersigned organizations and individuals submit this letter in response to price increases you took in 2016 on antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to treat HIV, and in advance of what has become a standard New Year’s practice of boosting Wholesale Acquisition Costs (WACs) for ARVs without regard to how that will affect patient access to these life-saving treatments. We also write to express concerns about future price increases for direct acting antivirals (DAAs) for the treatment of Hepatitis C (HCV), which are already priced beyond what insurers and people living with HCV can reasonably bear.

 

Included below, please find the U.S. Fair Pricing Coalition’s table documenting two years of increases, along with its pricing and access principles and requests. These issues are especially relevant in light of resulting cost-containment restrictions instituted by both public and private payers.

 

Since 2010, some ARV prices have even been raised twice in the same year, the most blatant example being Gilead’s dual hits in 2016 on Complera and Stribild, totaling 14.3% and 12.1% respectively. In all cases, the price increases exceed the rise in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), a measure of inflation, sometimes two to three times or more. They even exceed the medical CPI, which is always more than the overall CPI, arguably due in part to excessive drug prices.  In fact, average annual ARV increases have ranged from 5% to 8% ­— even higher in some instances — while the overall CPI has averaged 2.5% per year over the past 10 years.

 

We also have overwhelming evidence that exorbitant drug pricing has resulted in hepatitis C (HCV) patients being unable to access DAA combinations, which achieve up to 99% cure rates with minimal side effects. As examples of resulting obstacles, payers have initiated specialty tiering, coinsurance, and prior authorization restrictions for HIV and HCV drugs, with additional cost-containment measures in place for DAAs, such as fibrosis scoring qualifications, prescriber limitations, sobriety requirements, and detrimental rationing among incarcerated individuals.

Generally ignoring urgent community pleas to refrain from any price increases, and certainly no increases over medical CPI, the companies listed here have raised prices as follows (the columns show percent increases in 2015 and 2016, and overall since FDA approval):

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The FPC and signers of this letter firmly believe that upwardly spiraling drug prices are already beyond the limit of any conceivable justification, are unsustainable, and will further prevent HIV and HCV patients from accessing life-saving ARVs and DAAs. Thus, we urgently request that you agree to a two-year price freeze on ARVs and DAAs to offset, in part, the price increases of your ARV drugs since FDA approval, and the initial WAC prices of your Hepatitis C DAAs. We are aware of industry claims that no one actually pays the WAC price. However, we also know that all discounts start from that point, resulting in inflated, inconsistent, and unsustainable consumer prices.

 

If companies insist on instituting price increases, at the very most they should occur only once annually, no sooner than two years after FDA approval, and they should not exceed the overall increase in the medical CPI for the preceding year.

 

If any manufacturer of ARVs takes more than one annual price increase above medical CPI, or in the case of DAAs, any price increase whatsoever, we pledge to mobilize to notify and inform the public at every possible opportunity about any and all unreasonable and unfair pricing policies. President-elect Trump and Congressional leaders have provided bipartisan support for reining in excessive drug pricing, another pragmatic reason to curb your annual overreach. We urge you to heed these warnings, and reject any contemplated price increases.

 

Organizational signatories:

 

Access Support Network of San Luis Obispo and Monterey Counties
ACT UP LONDON
ACT UP New York
ACRIA
ADAP Advocacy Association
ADAP Educational Initiative
Advocates for Youth
AIDS Action Baltimore
AIDS Alabama‎
AIDS Foundation of Chicago
AIDS Treatment Activists Coalition
Any Positive Change Inc.
American Academy of HIV Medicine
American Sexual Health Association
AmidaCare
AVAC
Berkeley Free Clinic – Hep TEV Section
Big Bend Cares Inc.
Black AIDS Institute
Boulder Community Health-Beacon Center
Boulder County AIDS Project
CAEAR Coalition
Cares Community Health
The Center for Housing & Health
Center on Halsted
Chicago Women’s AIDS Project
Chicago House and Social Service Agency
CHOW Project
Coachella Valley Community Research Initiative, Inc.
Colorado Health Network
Colorado Organizations Responding to AIDS (CORA)
Community Access National Network
C.O.R.E. Medical Clinic, Inc.
CrescentCare
DC Fights Back!!
G III Associates
Gay Liberation Front NYC
GMHC
GNP+ (Global Network of People Living with HIV)
Good Samaritan Project
Harm Reduction Coalition
Harlem United
Health GAP
Health People
Healthy Rhythm Community Art Gallery
Hep C Alliance
Hep Free Hawaii
Hispanic Health Network
HIV Medicine Association
Illinois Alliance for Sound AIDS Policy (IL ASAP)
Illinois Public Health Association
Latino Commission on AIDS
Liver Health Connection
Los Angeles Community Health Project
LLHC (Louisiana Latino Health Coalition for HIV/AIDS Awareness)
Marin AIDS Project
National Alliance of State & Territorial AIDS Directors
Needle Exchange Emergency Distribution (NEED)
NMAC
Oasis Clinic
Okaloosa AIDS Support & Informational Services, Inc
Orange County Needle Exchange Program (OCNEP)
Pharma Greed Kills
Point Defiance AIDS Projects
Positive Iowans Taking Charge
Positive Life Palm Springs
Positive Women’s Network – USA (PWN-USA)
Project Inform
Projekt Information e.V.
Promise of Justice Initative
Sacramento Area S.T.O.P. Hepatitis Task-Force
San Francisco Hepatitis C Task Force
Santa Rosa Community Health Centers
San Francisco Department of Public Health
Southern AIDS Coalition
Southern HIV/AIDS Strategy Initiative (SASI)
Tennessee Association of People With AIDS
Test Positive Aware Network
Treatment Action Group
Treatment Access Expansion Project
Treatment Educat10n Network
Trystereo/New Orleans Harm Reduction Network
VOCAL New York
United States People Living with HIV Caucus
Universities Allied for Essential Medicines
University of Sussex
The Wall Las Memorias Project
Western North Carolina Community Health Services (WNCCHS)
Westside HIV/AIDS Regional Planning Council (WHARP), Chicago
Zephyr LTNP Foundation, Inc.

Individual signatories

Bernice Armould
Jim Banta
Ann Bardue
Gilbert Barrett
Michael Bauer
Jeffrey Beal
Sara Brewer
Christopher Cannon
Orlando Chavez
Lara Coffin
Kris Coontz
Jan Diamond
Michael Dorosh
Erin Dupuis
Ryan Eagle
Andria Efthimiou-Mordaunt
Isabelle Erbacher
Juan Fernandez Ochoa
Ann Finkelstein
Steven Flinn
Saoirse Folsom
Jim Fouratt
Alexandra Greenberg
Tami Haught
Mark Hubbard
Rosie James
Outi Kallunki
George Kerr III
Paul Kowal
Louise Kyle
Xuan Li
William Longbotham
Jennifer Lorvick
Colleen Lynch
Sara Lyttle
Najwa Maqbool
Paul Maurizio
Eric McNatt
Madeline Meisburger
Mark Milano
Bethany Miller
Jay Mills
Enrique Moresco
Priyanka  Narahari
Gerry Nealon
Katrina Nguyen
Stephanie Prohaska
Temple Robinson
Robin Roth
Merila Runlel
Juuso  Sallinen
Luis Santiago
Matt Sharp
Craig Shehea
Cynthia Springer
Peter Staley
Anna Steiner
Annunziata van Voorene
Wim Vandevelde
Reginald Vicks
Will Wilson