Instead, Drug Should Come With Affordability Guardrails

Statement from Margarida Jorge, Campaign Director, Lower Drug Prices Now

Washington, DC (March 24, 2020) — Yesterday the Trump Administration gave the drug corporation Gilead Sciences special monopoly protection on the promising COVID-19 treatment Remdesivir, giving them a green light to price gouge on a desperately needed treatment.

It’s especially outrageous considering the significant public investment taxpayers have made to the research and development of Remdesivir by the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and the Centers for Disease Control. Instead of granting monopoly power to set prices, the Trump Administration should ensure that every drug developed with significant public funding should be affordable by blocking corporations from price-gouge.

In the midst of this horrible pandemic, we can’t go on waiting for President Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to stop drug corporation profiteering. Earlier this month Azar, a former drug corporate executive, refused to guarantee that COVID drugs would be affordable.

President Trump promised ”to negotiate like crazy” with the big drug corporations, but so far we’ve seen the opposite: more giveaways that big corporations like Gilead profiteer off pandemic.