Here’s How We Can Make Medicines More Affordable

A powerful new book explains why our drugs cost so much and what to do about it. Author Tahir Amin explains, "what I see happening with the Trump administration's plan, this most favored nation drug pricing and Trump Rx, is actually it's going to get other countries to pay higher prices under the ruse that, oh, Americans will then see lower prices. That's not going to happen." 

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FEATURING TAHIR AMIN - The US Council of Economic Advisers this month released a report assessing consumer prices for pharmaceuticals and concluded that Americans pay the highest drug prices in the world and that the developing world pays too little. What is missing from the report is the power of pharmaceutical corporations to set prices and reap massive profits from desperate and sick people, while maintaining monopoly power. That’s the subject of a new book called Pharma Monopoly: The Battle for the Future of Medicines.

Tahir Amin is a founder and CEO of the Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge (I-MAK). He has also served as advisor/consultant to international groups including the European Patent Office, the World Health Organization, and Unitaid, and has testified before the US Congress on patents and unsustainable drug prices. Tahir spoke with Sonali Kolhatkar recently about his book, co-authored with Rohit Malpani.

ROUGH TRANSCRIPT:

Sonali Kolhatkar: So, you focus in your book primarily in the beginning on the COVID-19 vaccines because it's such a great and such a recent example of the way in which the battle over drug prices played out internationally versus here in the United States and revealed how pharmaceutical companies and the politicians who defend them conspire, if you will, to keep drugs to themselves or control access. Tell us that story of what it was that the battle over access to COVID-19 vaccines revealed to you as somebody who works on making drugs sustainable. 

Tahir Amin: Yeah. It was really one of the key drivers as to why myself and my coauthor really decided to write this book after 20 years of working in what is known as the Access to Medicines movement. What we saw play out during COVID was this really an apartheid system, which not only just happens between medicines not reaching people in the Global South, but actually also happens here in the United States and also even in Europe, in the more rich, wealthier countries, where many people cannot afford their medicines. 

And in the COVID example was so many people did not even see a first shot of the vaccine. I think by some counts, 2.2 billion people by the time the pandemic was officially announced as over in May 2023.