Gilbert Gutknecht: “I think a lot of folks here in Washington and some of the folks who represent the pharmaceutical industry thought, now…”

“I think a lot of folks here in Washington and some of the folks who represent the pharmaceutical industry thought, now that we have passed the prescription drug benefit, this issue about affordability and competition and open markets will just go away. We are here tonight to report that the issue is not going to go away and that Americans are still concerned. As I say, it is not a matter of right versus left. It is right versus wrong. It is simply wrong to hold American consumers captive so that we pay the highest prices in the industrialized world. As the gentleman just said, we subsidize the pharmaceutical industry and the research in three separate ways. First of all in the Tax Code. Not only do they write off every dollar that they spend on research; in some cases they actually get a research and development tax credit. So the costs to the company are very negligible. In addition to that, we subsidize them through the NIH, the CDC, and even through the VA and the Defense Department. So I think the real number that we spend on basic research that ultimately benefits the pharmaceutical companies actually is closer to 27 billion taxpayer dollars per year.”