Bernie Sanders joins Dem lawmakers pushing feds to help lower cost of prostate cancer drugs
A group of lawmakers is calling on the National Institutes of Health and Department of Health and Human Services to step in and reduce the cost of Medivation Inc’s and Astellas Pharma Inc’s prostate cancer drug Xtandi.
In the letter signed by Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and Reps. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.), the lawmakers urged NIH to hold a public hearing to consider overriding the patent on Xtandi to make the drug available at a lower price.
The medication has an average wholesale price in the United States of more than $129,000 but is sold in Japan and Sweden for $39,000 and in Canada for $30,000, according to the lawmakers’ letter, addressed to HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell and NIH Director Francis Collins.
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Also signing the letter were Sens. Al Franken (D-Minn.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), as well as Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.).
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/03/bernie-sanders-joins-dem-lawmakers-pushing-feds-to-help-lower-cost-of-prostate-cancer-drugs/
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