Durbin Joins Grassley In Attempt To Pass Bipartisan Bill To Require Price Transparency In Prescription Drug Advertisements

Statement

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"Every year, Big Pharma spends more than $6 billion on ads. That's the size of the entire budget of the Food and Drug Administration… You want to know why pharmaceutical companies spend so much money promoting their drugs? Because it increases their profits dramatically. The average American sees an average of nine ads per day. Pharma thinks if they pummel you with enough ads, that you will finally learn how to pronounce and spell Xarelto, and you'll insist to your doctor that this is the one blood thinner you really need… With billions in targeted spending, patients are bombarded with information, but kept in the dark about one fact. Of all the things they mumble and chatter about at the end of these ads, the one thing they never want you to know is how much these drugs cost--the price."

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"Senator Grassley and I think it's time for Big Pharma to end the secrecy about the real cost of these drugs. If they're advertising a drug, they should disclose the price up front. It is a basic transparency measure for patients. We introduced bipartisan legislation to require price disclosure in direct-to-consumer drug ads. Our plan is very simple. And it actually passed the Senate once before in 2018."

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"If the drug companies are going to spend a fortune, millions of dollars, more than they spend on research for new drugs, advertising these drugs, we have a right to ask "what do they cost?' Is that such a tough question to answer? Not if you're proud of your product. Not if you're proud of the price that you're charging. But if you don't want the American public to know it, you conceal the price and you send Senators to the floor who will object to considering this measure."

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