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July 1, 2000, Saturday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section A; Page 1; Column 4; National Desk
LENGTH: 1352 words
HEADLINE:
THE 2000 CAMPAIGN: THE PRESCRIPTION DRUG ISSUE;
Gore Tries
Pitching Himself As Drug Industry Opponent
BYLINE: By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, June 30
BODY:
Attacking the pharmaceutical industry for
engaging in "corporate chutzpah" and for "gouging the consumer unfairly," Vice
President Al Gore said today that he would take on the drug
manufacturers next week at campaign stops in battleground states from California
to Pennsylvania.
In an interview on the veranda of his home here, Mr.
Gore cast himself as a longtime critic of what he said were the industry's
excessive prices and profits.
He does, in fact, have a long record on
the topic, dating to his days as a young Tennessee congressman in the early
1980's, when he played a crucial role in defeating legislation that would have
granted drug companies patent extensions on
lucrative medicines.
So Mr. Gore is dusting off his Congressional record
and past speeches to stake out policies at odds with the manufacturers. A review
of his record, though, and a detailed talk with the vice president make clear
that his views are more nuanced than his language suggests. And some of the same
drug makers that Mr. Gore now criticizes have hired his friends
and advisers to represent them as lobbyists.
The pharmaceutical
industry, which responded icily to Mr.Gore's statements today, has in some cases
embraced his positions. For instance, drug manufacturers are
among the biggest beneficiaries of the government's tax credit for research and
development, and Mr. Gore favors legislation that would make that credit
permanent.
And while he argued for greater disclosure of the industry's
pricing practices, the vice president allowed that some information probably
should remain proprietary. Mr. Gore has also been a strong supporter of the
biotechnology industry, which through collaborations and mergers is becoming
part of the prescription-drug business.
"I don't see
myself as a basher of the pharmaceutical companies," Mr. Gore said. "I see
myself as opposing the excesses that have accompanied their enormous market
power, excesses that have come at the expense of consumers."
Drug executives, who have contributed far more to the
campaign of Mr. Gore's Republican rival, Gov. George W. Bush, have mixed
feelings about Mr. Gore.
His support for innovation and new technology
endears him to them, and he is not nearly as vociferous a critic as the Green
Party candidate, Ralph Nader. But industry executives are becoming more nervous
about Mr. Gore as the presidential campaign progresses. And when asked about
today's escalating attack, their trade association responded in kind.
"It's truly sad to hear the vice president arguing for reducing
incentives for biomedical innovation," Alan F. Holmer, president of the
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said in a statement. "If
his rhetoric became government policy, patients would suffer. Thankfully, no one
will be fooled by political posturing four months before an election."
With his heightened, anti-industry stand that consumers are "being
ripped off" by drug makers, Mr. Gore is positioning himself as
a champion of a far-reaching Medicare prescription drug benefit
for senior citizens.
At the same time, his campaign's polls show that
the issue resonates strongly with voters. So Mr. Gore is also trying to sharpen
the distinctions between himself and Mr. Bush, who supports a benefit that would
rely more heavily on private insurers, an approach the industry favors.
The drug industry is one of the nation's most
lucrative, and secretive, businesses. It consistently ranks as the most
profitable industry in the Fortune 500 list of companies; in 1999, the
industry's net profit after taxes was 18.9 percent of revenues, as compared with
15.8 percent for the next most profitable industry, commercial banking, and 5
percent over all, according to a recent compilation by the Kaiser Family
Foundation.
Drug makers argue that their prices are
justified by the high costs, and risks, of researching and developing new
medicines. And they say they need substantial profits to plow back into research
and development, clearing the way for the next generation of wonder
drugs. To the industry, any threat to profits or
drug prices is a threat to innovation.
That concern is
reflected in the contributions the two major presidential contenders have
received. To date, Mr. Bush's campaign has received $221,715 from
drug company executives, while Mr. Gore has received $50,700,
election records show.
Mr. Bush has not made the
prescription-drug issue a cornerstone of his campaign, but one
of his top health advisers said that the Texas governor is opposed to tampering
with the industry's ability to develop life-saving medications.
"Anything that would dampen innovation, particularly price controls,
ought to be avoided," said Bill Roper, who was a top health official in the
administration of Mr. Bush's father, and is now dean of the School of Public
Health at the University of North Carolina.
"We need to trust the
marketplace," Mr. Roper added.
The Bush campaign did not make the Texas
governor available for an interview.
Mr. Gore said today that he, too,
opposed regulating drug prices or profits. "I don't see it as
the government's role," he said.
But he did say the industry's profits
were out of line, and he favors policies that would, in effect, cut into profits
and curb prices.
For example, Mr. Gore said he supported a legislative
amendment, recently passed by the House of Representatives, requiring
drug makers to agree to reasonable prices for treatments
invented in collaboration with government scientists.
There are more
than 90 such collaborations under way with the National Cancer Institute alone.
But the industry has consistently opposed a pricing clause, and its protests
were a main reason why the National Institutes of Health abandoned such a
provision in 1995. "If I had been in the Congress, I certainly would have voted
for it," Mr. Gore said.
In a similar vein, Mr. Gore supports requiring
drug companies to pay a fee to the government for medicines
developed with the help of government grants. Some of today's top-selling
drugs got their start in the federally financed laboratories of
university scientists, and Mr. Gore said that the public "ought to have some
right not to be gouged on the purchase of products that they themselves helped
to develop."
At the same time, the vice president favors a proposed rule
that would make it more difficult for companies to use the regulatory process to
delay competition -- a rule the industry opposes. And he is against a highly
publicized provision that has been circulating in Congress to extend the
patent for Claritin, the top-selling allergy medication.
Mr. Gore's stance on Claritin puts him somewhat at odds with a close
adviser and friend, Peter Knight. Last year, Claritin's manufacturer, the
Schering-Plough Corporation, hired Mr. Knight to help develop a lobbying
campaign for the patent extension, among other issues.
Mr. Knight has since left the lobbying business, and Mr. Gore insisted
today that he has never talked with him, or other friends who have represented
drug makers, about industry issues. "All the positions I've
taken," he said, "are against their clients."
Mr. Gore was clearly
well-briefed for the hourlong interview, and seemed to relish the opportunity to
go on the offensive against an industry he has long taken an interest in. At one
point, he recalled a meeting he had 18 years ago with Representative Richard
Bolling, then the chairman of the House Rules Committee -- a meeting that led to
the defeat of the patent-extension legislation the industry
coveted.
At the time, Mr. Gore said, he was particularly irked that the
industry refused to make public data that would have supported its position. "It
was the most astounding example of corporate chutzpah I had ever run across," he
said.
And in a serendipitous moment for the vice president, his
11-year-old black labrador, Shiloh, wandered onto the veranda midway through the
conversation.
As it happens, Shiloh takes medicine for arthritis. "This
dog here," Mr. Gore said, "gets a cheaper price for the same
drug than humans."
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