NEW POLL: Overwhelming Majority Wants Congress to Ensure That Drugs Developed with Taxpayer Dollars Are Affordable, Accessible to All

New polling aligns with Patients Over Pharma’s push for Congress to prioritize drug affordability in upcoming COVID-19 legislation

Only 9% believe Big Pharma claim that patient protections and affordability guarantees would impact drug innovation

Washington, DC – Today, Patients Over Pharma released new nationwide polling from Public Policy Polling showing that an overwhelming majority of Americans (84%) support government action to ensure drugs developed through taxpayer-funded research are accessible and affordable for every American. This comes as Congress is negotiating additional legislation to respond to the COVID-19 crisis and Patients Over Pharma is pushing for strong provisions to prevent drug company profiteering and ensure vaccine and treatment affordability and access.

“There is absolutely no reason that this should be difficult or controversial, especially during a pandemic: If taxpayers pour hundreds of millions of dollars into a drug’s research and development, the drug company should make that drug affordable and accessible to every American,” said Eli Zupnick, spokesman for Patients Over Pharma. “Congress needs to push aside Big Pharma’s lobbyists and allies in the Administration and move quickly on legislation to prevent drug company profiteering and ensure that every family – not just the wealthy and well-connected – can afford coronavirus vaccines and treatments that their tax dollars helped develop.”

Drug companies have received hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to develop COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, while lobbying against any provisions that would ensure that these drugs would be affordable and accessible to every American. In fact, the pharmaceutical industry and their lobbyists not only blocked language that would have prevented Big Pharma from locking up coronavirus vaccines or treatments with multi-year exclusivity and protection from generic competition, they actually managed to slip language into the law that prevents the government from intervening when there are concerns about affordability.

Poll question language 

You may know that the federal government invests millions of dollars in research that drug companies then use to develop drugs. Which statement do you agree with more: 

• If a drug was developed using taxpayer-funded research, then the government should be able to step in on behalf of taxpayers and make sure that the drug is accessible and affordable for every American …………………….84% 
• Even if a drug was developed using taxpayer dollars the government shouldn’t interfere with the market by forcing drug companies to make drugs affordable and accessible to every American, since that could deter the drug companies from innovating and developing new drugs……………………………….9%
• Not sure…………………………………………………. 7%