Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise to strongly support the upcoming Bingaman-Vitter amendment, which is basically an amendment form that Bingaman-Vitter Fair Generics Act would stop an escalating trend in the drug industry which has pay-for-delay deals between a generic manufacturer and a big pharmaceutical manufacturer. Over the last several years we have seen a huge increase, and we have seen this trend grow from modest to a raging trend, and it is anticompetitive. It is pay-for-delay deals in which the brand-name drug dealer pays off or settles with the first-to-file generic drugmaker, often restricting generic market entry for years into the future. As prescription drug prices explode, they put real pressure and burdens on many Americans' budgets because they are making medications that should be more affordable in terms of coming onto the market. They are postponing those drugs, paying for the delay, and holding them off the market longer and longer. The FTC has compiled data and made clear that this trend is happening, and the FTC, an official government agency, said: The continued trends of record numbers of brands and generics resolving patent litigation prior to a final court decision [yields] significant numbers of such settlements potentially involving pay-for-delay. Those were the FTC's words. In 2004 the FTC had identified zero of those sorts of pay-for-delay deals. In 2006 it was up to 14. In 2011 it doubled to 28. Clearly it is a big trend.…”