Maine Rx bad medicine

Chellie Pingree is on to something. In her bid for the U.S. Senate, Pingree is spending thousands of campaign dollars bashing pharmaceutical companies in radio and TV advertisments. Yet with her own money, according to her financial reports, she is buying pharmaceutical company stock. Pingree knows what experts have been saying for a long time: investing in medicine is a good thing, especially for patients. A Columbia University economist recently concluded that each new drug adds $200 million every year to the U.S. economy by helping people live longer and stay more productive.

Medicines also save health care dollars. Stroke patients who receive new clot busting drugs spend fewer days in hospitals and nursing homes, saving the health care system an average of $4,000 for each stroke victim treated. New asthma drugs have cut expensive emergency room visits and patients receiving new Alzheimer’s drugs are half as likely to need costly nursing home care. Yet only a small part of the nation’s medical bill – nine cents out of every health care dollar – is spent on medicine.

So if prescription drugs are such a good deal, what’s all the fuss about? The problem is not all insurance plans pay for prescription medicines. Medicare, the health insurance plan for seniors, does not pay for drugs. This needs to be corrected and the pharmaceutical industry supports adding a drug benefit to Medicare.

While Congress is working on a prescription drug benefit for Medicare, Maine politicians are touting Maine’s first-in-the-nation drug price control law and crisscrossing the nation to show other legislators the way. This has gained Maine national attention, but legislators aren’t the only ones watching. The price control law sends a discouraging message to the entrepreneurs and investors who manage and finance biotechnology startups – companies on the leading edge of pharmaceutical research. Maine’s anti-business, price control law may cause them to look for more inviting states in which to start or locate their businesses.

Several years ago the state began an ambitious program to invest in research and development and build infrastructure in an effort to attract biotechnology companies to Maine. The town of Fairfield is building a business incubator to house biotechnology start-ups. Millions of tax dollars have gone to research institutions like The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor and the Foundation for Blood Research in Scarborough. The Maine Technology Institute is providing seed money to companies like Phylogix in South Portland, which is developing a drug to protect healthy cells from damage by anti-cancer therapy.

So while Maine is working hard to attract new biotechnology companies to the state, some politicians are doing their best to make them feel unwelcome. In an interview in American Medical News, Chellie Pingree said, “The pharmaceutical industry is starting to look like Big Tobacco.” Not exactly words of encouragement to Maine young people who are considering a career in biomedical research or to entrepreneurs looking for a place to start a business.

Douglas R. Johnson, Ph.D. is executive director of the Maine Biotechnology Information Bureau in Stonington. His e-mail address is info@mainebioinfo.org.