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WASHINGTON – The members of the Association for Accessible Medicines (AAM), today announced the start of an industry-wide effort to remind everyone across the nation not to take the generic medicines they rely on daily – and the savings they enjoy – for granted. This campaign will facilitate the donations of doses of generic medicines to communities in need across America through the nonprofitDirect Relief.
Like the air we breathe and the water we drink, health is fundamental to everything in life, and generic medicines, (a/k/a GRx) are fundamental to everyone’s health and the viability of our healthcare system. Nine out of every 10 prescriptions filled in the United States are for generic medicines, yet they account for only 18 percent of drug spending and only 3 percent of overall health care spending. While touching the health of millions of Americans, this essential, but often overlooked, industry is at risk from anti-competitive practices, perverse market distortions and misguided public policies.
To bring the role that generics play in Americans’ everyday lives to the forefront, the #4GRxANTED campaign asks people to record a video or share a story explaining who or what in their lives they take for granted but shouldn’t, and post on social media. For every video created or shared with the hashtag #4GRxANTED, an individual will be credited with a donation of generic medicine to Direct Relief, a humanitarian aid organization that provides medical assistance to people affected by poverty or emergencies.
“We want people to pause for a moment and consider how generics – more than many other parts of their health care – do so much for them for so little money,” said Christine Baeder, Chair of the Association for Accessible Medicines and Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer for US Generics, Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. “This timely campaign being unveiled to the industry today is designed to stimulate widespread support for policies that ensure everyone can continue to access our more affordable medicines as they have for the last four decades, and that alternatives to the most complex and costly treatments continue to be developed and marketed.”
“We don’t have the hundreds of millions of dollars that other industry groups use to draw attention to our medicines and our issues, but what we do have are hundreds of millions of patients who are able to access more affordable lifesaving and health-maintaining medicines because of the generic and biosimilar industry,” explained David Gaugh, Interim CEO, Association for Accessible Medicines. “Engaging these Americans to facilitate the donation of generic medicines to those in need is an effective and humanitarian way to shine a light on this industry’s unparalleled contributions to health care in the U.S. and its already robust charitable contributions to communities across this nation.”
“Access to medicine is critical yet distributed unevenly across the U.S.,” said Thomas Tighe, President and CEO of Direct Relief. “Direct Relief is deeply appreciative for the many AAM members that step-up time and again in crises and on an ongoing basis to expand medication access to people facing tremendous hardship, and we are delighted to partner with AAM and its members as the beneficiary of the #4GRxANTED campaign.”
Generic manufacturers face an array of market forces that jeopardize the long-term sustainability of the low-cost medicines that American families rely on. The consolidation of purchasers into three market-dominating corporations in recent years has resulted in a significant imbalance in the market and a multi-year deflationary cycle for generics that threatens continued patient access to the lowest cost medicines. The decline in prices of generic medicines year after year – a phenomenon that is unique to American health care — limits manufacturers’ necessary investments in R&D, additional capacity, inventory, next generation automation and advanced quality systems. Combined with rebate practices that too often favor high-cost, high-priced, brand-name drugs over lower-cost generic competition, generic manufacturers are experiencing a perfect storm that requires policy reforms to correct the perverse incentives and market distortions that exist today while at the same time safeguarding those rules and regulations that allowed the industry to spearhead the generic medicine revolution decades ago.
#4GRxANTED’s goal is to support action to remedy these long-term sustainability challenges on behalf of the industry and the hundreds of millions of patients it serves.
Learn more about the #4GRxANTED campaign: https://4grxanted.org/
Follow the #4GRxANTED campaign and social media channels: @4GRxANTED
