Biden to tackle cancer drug prices as part of post-White House moonshot work
Vice President Biden, who led the Obama administration’s “cancer moonshot” initiative, plans to start a “national conversation” about the high cost of cancer drugs as part of a nonprofit organization he will create to extend his cancer work, he said in an interview Wednesday.
“I’m going to begin a national conversation and get Congress and advocacy groups in to make sure these treatments are accessible for everyone, including these vulnerable underserved populations, and that we have a more rational way of paying for them while promoting innovation,” Biden said.
The vice president, who lost his son, Beau, to brain cancer in May 2015, didn’t focus much on drug prices during his almost year-long sprint to accelerate progress against cancer. Part of the reason, he said, was that there were many other issues to pursue. But another reason was that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, a harsh critic of the pharmaceutical industry, had asked him to continue running the moonshot effort after he left the White House, and drug costs “was one of the points on the agenda,” he said.
Now, Biden said, he is getting strong encouragement from throughout the cancer community to grapple with the pricing issue. “The researchers, the insurers, all of the major cancer centers .?.?. want me to pursue it.” He added that Greg Simon, executive director of the White House Moonshot Task Force, recently met with the pharmaceutical company officials. “They all realize they have a problem,” the vice president said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/01/04/biden-to-tackle-cancer-drug-prices-as-part-of-post-white-house-moonshot-work/?utm_term=.58913ce46016&wpisrc=al_alert-COMBO-exclusive%252Bhse
