Healthy Skepticism Library item: 12279

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Rubenstein S.
With Iowa Caucuses in Wings, Pharma CEOs Talk Politics
The Wall Street Journal 2008 Jan 3
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/01/03/with-iowa-caucuses-in-wings-pharma-ceos-talk-politics/

Full text:

With results from the Iowa caucuses coming tonight, two Big Pharma CEOs seemed unworried about how the drug industry will fare this election year.

Despite the uncertainties, Schering-Plough CEO Fred Hassan struck an upbeat tone when asked about politics at Morgan Stanley’s “Pharmaceutical CEOs Unplugged” conference. The drug industry, he said, is in “50% positive territory in terms of our favorable standing with the American public, and that has a big effect on the way politics develop.” (We were surprised by that figure and asked Schering-Plough for more information. No word yet.)

Both Hassan and Merck CEO Richard Clark, who also spoke at the conference, said the Medicare drug benefit has been successful. Hassan said, for instance, that efforts to give the government power to negotiate drug prices for the program have “died down.” That’s because of seniors’ high satisfaction with the program, he said.

Hassan also said the industry is doing a “more effective job at working both sides of the aisle.” For his part, Clark added that Merck has “always worked on a bipartisan basis with Republicans and Democrats.” Clark, who takes over as chairman of the trade group PhRMA this year, said he hopes the industry will be able to offer recommendations on health reform, especially around the uninsured.

For an indicator of that bipartisan spirit, take a look at drug industry contributions to the donkeys and elephants, as Dow Jones Newswires reminded us this morning.

Still, the public optimism from the CEOs today clashed with some of the chatter on the Health Blog about the presidential race. We couldn’t help but remember readers’ comments in defense of Big Pharma to this post about a proposal by John Edwards to replace patents with prizes for new drugs. Or a broadside from Hillary Clinton that we’d read in the New York Times on New Year’s day: “I’ve taken on the drug companies,” Clinton said. “I’ve taken on the health insurance companies; I’ve taken on the oil companies, and I intend to keep doing it.”

Update: Our curiosity piqued, we did find some recent data on how Americans view drug makers. Harris Interactive polled more than 2,500 adults in October and found that Big Pharma tied with Big Oil at 53% as the industry that respondents said is most in need of additional regulation. When asked which industries are “generally honest and trustworthy,” only 11% said pharmaceuticals fit the bill. Supermarkets topped the trustworthiness chart at 32%.