According to a recent analysis, the cost of prescription pharmaceutical medications has increased, making them disproportionately more expensive for persons of color.
According to a study this month from the advocacy group Patients for Affordable Drugs, pharmaceutical corporations have raised the cost of at least 1,000 prescription medications so far this year, with over half of those price hikes exceeding the rate of inflation.
According to the survey, one in three Americans cannot afford their prescription medications. Black and Latino individuals 65 years of age and older are disproportionately affected by these high drug prices, with the latter group reporting difficulties paying for their prescriptions twice as frequently.
Enhertu, a medication used to treat HER2 positive breast cancer, is one of the medications impacted by the price increase. According to a recent study, HER2 positive malignancies cause a higher death rate in Black women than in White women. Since the medication’s introduction in 2019, Daiichi Sankyo and AstraZeneca, its maker, have increased the price eight times.
The most recent rise was in July, when it increased by 3.49% to more over $2,800 per month. Revlimid, a medication used to treat multiple myeloma, had a 7% increase in price, reaching a list price of about $89,000 per month. The study emphasizes that black people in the US have a higher diagnosis and death rate from the illness.
Daiichi Sankyo and AstraZeneca informed NBC News that the wholesale acquisition cost for Enhertu “does not necessarily reflect the prices paid by consumers, payers, or dispensers.” The price adjustment of the medication “reflects the continued clinical benefit Revlimid brings to patients, along with other economic factors,” according to a representative for Bristol Myers Squibb, the company that manufactures Revlimid. Additionally, the business stated that the majority of patients will not pay the medication’s quoted price and that it has programs to “assist commercially insured patients with out-of-pocket costs.”
According to Merith Basey, the executive director of Patients for Affordable Drugs, pharmaceutical firms raise drug prices twice a year on average, and there is no system in place in the United States to impose pricing caps. Although she refers to the lack of affordability as a “crisis” that impacts the majority of Americans, she claimed that people of color are disproportionately affected.
According to Basey, “Cherokee and Latino families have a higher incidence of chronic illnesses and some cancers… that do require those long-term, very expensive drugs.” “Systemic racism has been shown to be a contributing factor in the well-documented racial disparities in health care.”
According to Basey, black people are also more prone to suffer from diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, and chronic discomfort. Patients who miss their prescribed dosage due to lack of access to drugs may experience long-term problems. Certain individuals, she continued, “haven’t been able to afford their insulin have ended up dying prematurely.”
It has been extremely difficult for Hope Mills, North Carolina resident Carrol Olinger to buy her medicine. Olinger, 54, takes at least thirty drugs to treat her chronic illnesses, which include high blood pressure, Type 1 diabetes, and end-stage renal failure, which occurs when the kidneys are no longer able to work normally. Despite having Medicare, Olinger’s monthly drug costs sometimes reach $300.
Olinger experienced nearly five months without insurance around two years ago; she called it a “nightmare.” In an attempt to cut expenses, she resorted to taking her blood pressure medication every other day and utilizing less insulin than was advised. In order to pay for her medicine, she claimed to have depleted her funds and needed to borrow money from friends and relatives.
“Every day I had a headache,” Olinger remarked. “I just felt exhausted and drained, and on top of that, I was just really emotional for no apparent reason.” She started to doubt her chances of surviving.
A number of health care advocacy groups, such as Health Care for America Now and Patients for Affordable Drugs, are advocating for laws that would lessen patients’ financial burdens. Both groups backed the President Joe Biden-signed Inflation Reduction Act, which attempts to lower the cost of prescription drugs.
Margarida Jorge, the executive director of Health Care for America Now, described the disproportionate effect that high medication costs have on people of color as a “form of systemic racism.” The treatment of sickle cell anemia, which affects 1 in 13 Black kids born in the United States, is one instance she gives of the health care system’s shortcomings.
“There hasn’t been much attention to really getting down to the business of trying to cure sickle cell anemia with a drug that is affordable to regular people— and I think it has a lot to do with the fact that it’s a Black disease,” said Jorge, who is also the campaign director for Lower Drug Prices Now. “We’ve known about sickle cell anemia for many, many years.”
Since Medicare and Medicaid are all federal programs, Jorge noted that many people are concerned that, should a new president be elected, “some pretty significant changes” may be made to them.
Jorge said, “We always place a high priority on protecting those two programs and doing everything in our power to keep increasing coverage.”
Olinger claims that although the Biden administration’s decision to set the price of insulin at $35 has helped her, other medical costs, such as those for diabetes test strips, have gone up. Her $57 diabetic pen needles would have cost $1,000 if she didn’t have insurance.
Olinger declared, “I would be a thief or dead if I didn’t have insurance.”
Basey of Patients for Affordable Drugs stated that her group is still working to pass legislation similar to S.142, which forbids pharmaceutical firms from paying generic brands to postpone the entry of their products into the market. Black people won’t have to decide between “paying for their medication and putting food on the table” if inexpensive measures are put into place.
“The most important thing, in my opinion, is that these are regular people who are just requesting the right to a dignified death when they become ill,” stated Basey. “They shouldn’t have to worry about making ends meet to pay for their prescription drugs.”
