Lilly, Pfizer and AstraZeneca Jockeying for Position on Healthcare Reform

Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Bayer, Roche and AstraZeneca all agree on healthcare reform in the U.S.: They want to see the system changed so long as it in no way hurts their companies.

During the 1990s drug companies furiously fought the Clinton plan for universal coverage with TV ads featuring "Harry and Louise" (pictured), a kitchen-table couple who just hated everything about reform.

This time around pharma is taking a softly-softly approach. They're starting with a broad agreement that healthcare in the U.S. needs reform. It's hard to argue that it doesn't when more than 40 million people have no health coverage -- that's a Third World-level of medical care.

There the broad agreement ends. The companies are generally opposing price controls even though they are supporting increased prescription drug benefits. You don't have to know much about the laws of supply and demand to see why companies want universal scrip coverage: With more people getting reimbursed access to drugs, but no price controls, prices can only rise. (Who is going to pay for all this? Um, they haven't got to that part yet.)

Here's a brief look at the positions of a few companies that have dipped their toes into the politics of health reform:

AstraZeneca:

[AZ CEO David Brennan] suggested that insurers should rethink "co-payments", which make customers pay for a share of their medicines, arguing that the result had been a cut in the use of medicines and an increase in the risk of patients needing acute care. Any changes needed to ensure the importance of maintaining "rewards for innovation".

I think philosophically people agree independently that something's got to be done. The first thing that has to happen is the inclusion of a large portion of the population. More than 10 percent of the population are excluded from the current coverage system so step 1 is to provide them with access to medical care to a prescription drug benefit, to some kind of program that allows them to operate properly within the system ...

Eli Lilly and other drug companies are mobilizing a public-relations campaign to head off congressional efforts to set drug prices.

Indiana is one of 10 states to form its own chapter of "We Work for Health," a coalition of drug companies, local governments and chambers of commerce playing up the medical miracles of drug research, and warning that research is in jeopardy if the government decides companies' profit margin for drugs purchased by Medicare patients.

"Neither Lilly nor our industry is asking the government for any bailouts to keep our research going," says Lilly CEO John Lechleiter. "Our concern is to avoid government actions that could destroy the ability to bring the next generation of medicines forward."

... Hoosiers Work for Health members also include Pfizer, Bayer and Roche Diagnostics.

... Lechleiter says Lilly does support efforts to reform health insurance, and calls the current system unsustainable. He says any changes should ensure greater access to medications.

[Pfizer CEO Jeff Kindler] was the only chief executive from the drug industry at the White House summit on health care reform ...

"We have an obligation as an industry to participate (in reform) and try to contribute to the solution of these problems," said Kindler, who travels frequently and has been discussing reform ideas with patient, doctor, nurse, labor and business groups.

Among other changes, he supports more emphasis on preventive care and expanding government insurance to more people. And Kindler says it makes more sense to support beneficial changes than just to block ones the industry doesn't like.