Senate Proceeding on May 9th, 2011 :: 4:45:10 to 4:57:25
Total video length: 4 hours 57 minutes Stream Tools: Stream Overview | Edit Time

Note: MetaVid video transcripts may contain inaccuracies, help us build a more perfect archive

Views:54 Duration: 0:12:15 Discussion

Previous speech:

4:45:10 to 4:57:25( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Sherrod Brown

4:45:13 to 4:45:34( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: quorum call: a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: thank you. mr. president. i ask unanimous consent to dispense with the quorum call. the presiding officer:. mr. brown: thank you, mr. president. yesterday across this country we celebrated mother's day, marking the contribution of mothers across our country. two months ago the health of

4:45:35 to 4:45:55( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: tens of thousands of expectant mothers and their unborn children was threatened by a drug company putting profit over public health. two months ago there was justified public outrage that the cost of a drug hormone, a projest roan to prevent premature births went from approximately $10 a dose, 20

4:45:56 to 4:46:17( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: doses are needed through the course of a pregnancy, to $1,500 a dose. the entire course of the 20-week treatment therefore was about $200 three months ago. two months ago it went to $30,000. from $200 to $30,000.

4:46:18 to 4:46:39( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: this was a once affordable and common treatment to help women facing high-risk labor. i visited toledo's children hospital, metro health in cleveland and saint liz berth's center in -- saint elizabeth's center in youngstown to hear

4:46:40 to 4:47:02( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: about how the price increase affects them. patients explained with twhas like to rely on this progesterone. the risk was explained to health

4:47:03 to 4:47:25( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: if it was no longer accessible. medicaid directors worried about what such an exorbitant increase would mean to stretched budgets. colleagues and i began to ask questions about how and why the increase happened in the first place. we're concerned about how private companies abuse the f.d.a. approval process or

4:47:26 to 4:47:48( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: manipulate existing rules to shortchange consumers while companies reap massive windfall profits. that's especially so because in addition to fixing such a high cost of the drug this company, k.b. pharmaceuticals, sent a letter to pharmacies, those

4:47:49 to 4:48:09( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: pharmacies that make their own progeste rone in this case. further solidified k.b. pharmaceutical's monopolization of the market. market monopolization, outrageous prices. all the while pregnant mothers are left without the critical medicine their doctors prescribe

4:48:10 to 4:48:30( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: for them, either taxpayers foot the bill, insurance companies foot the bill driving the price up, or women simply do without, increasing the number of miscarriages, increasing the number of low birthweight babies, increasing the cost to taxpayers and increasing the heartache in mother after mother and father after father.

4:48:31 to 4:48:53( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: fortunately, in an unusual response, unusual in the sense that this case was so dramatically outrageous and unbelievably greedy on the part of k.v. pharmaceutical executives, the f.d.a. did something it normally doesn't do. it asserted its authority. it made clear it would not enforce k.v. pharmaceutical's

4:48:54 to 4:49:14( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: cease and desist order. what was k.v.'s response after the f.d.a. refused to enforce the cease and desist order therefore allowing pharmaceutical companies to keep producing this progeste rone. it reduced the price, remember it was $10 times 20.

4:49:15 to 4:49:39( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: take a shot every week for 20 weeks during the preg unanimous seufplt it was $10 a dose. they raised it to $1,500. you know what they did after the f.d.a. and a small number of senators pushed them -- embarrassed them in public. they brought the price down to $690 a dose. it went from $10 when compounding pharmacies were

4:49:40 to 4:50:01( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: doing it to $1,500 down to $690 as if they are doing america's woman a favor. that means instead of it being $30,000 for the whole cost of the pharmaceutical, the 20 doses, it would be about $15,000. on top of that k.v. pharmaceuticals did what companies whose hands are caught in the cookie jar always do.

4:50:02 to 4:50:22( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: they hired high-powered d.c. lobbyists to fight for its rights, its exclusivity for this drug, trying to prevent the critical work of compounding pharmacists. i agree with the drug companies generally that they need to recoup their investment. i want america's drug companies to do the boldest, most innovative, most progressive research in the world, and i

4:50:23 to 4:50:43( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: want them to make a profit doing it so they can afford to do it and keep doing it. they should reflect the amount of r&d required to bring treatments to market, the cost of manufacture, the cost of their distribution. but in the case of this progesterone, the case of this compounded pharmacy, this

4:50:44 to 4:51:04( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: pharmacy compound, taxpayers in this case through the national institutes of health funded initial research, continued to fund critical research on premature births. k.v. pharmaceutical, they didn't do the research. they bought the exclusive rights to a monoply by reimbursing another company, contracting with them that actually conducted the clinical trial

4:51:05 to 4:51:25( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: costs needed for f.d.a. approval. something is very wrong when a company with limited r&d investments can grossly overprice a drug that in its absence virtually increases, virtually guarantees an increase in premature birth. think of the greed involved here. $10, they paid some number of millions of dollars to do a

4:51:26 to 4:51:46( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: clinical trial which was a good thing. they then brought the price from $10 to $1,500 times 20, again, with what the number of, the number of doses that people need in their treatment. they would have, an initial investment of less than $200 million, they the first year would have reaped over $3

4:51:47 to 4:52:08( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: billion in revenue. that's the kind of numbers they were operating on, as if that's fair. when a company uses taxpayer-funded research to produce a drug so important that it reduces infant mortality and birth defects, that company should also take on the responsibility for pricing it in a reasonable manner. prices should never be inflated particularly on a public health

4:52:09 to 4:52:30( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: drug where this company did not do the basic foundational research. all it did was pay for clinical trials that didn't prove much more than we already knew. companies should never be allowed to inflate prices of a public health drug to reap massive profits. nor should the f.d.a. approval process ever be manipulateed to

4:52:31 to 4:52:51( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: achieve that same end, which it was. while balancing corporate earnings and societal benefits -- and i understand the balance and want the drug companies to continue to invest and move ahead, while they can be challenging balancing corporate earnings and societal

4:52:52 to 4:53:13( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: benefits, --. i'd like to close with a story about why all this matters. not too long ago, last month i guess it was early april, i was at port columbus international airport about to fly to washington when karen torino, whom identify never met before,

4:53:14 to 4:53:35( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: walked he -- whom i'd never met before, walked up to me to share a story. she sent me this letter. i met you at the columbus airport with my husband and our 17-month-old son. i wanted to say thank you for the work you're doing to make the progeste rone shots affordable again.

4:53:36 to 4:53:57( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: i prematurely went into labor at 24 weeks. i had an emergency c-section. tyler was born at 9:59 weighing 1 pound, 10 ounces. thad went to be with me since i was recovering there surgery. he called me the next morning and told me the worst news a new mother can hear. there was nothing more that could be done and tyler would

4:53:58 to 4:54:19( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: pass away. my mother-in-law took me to hold tyler for the first and last taoeufplt it was devastate -- last time. it was devastated. i worked with authorities to raise awareness on what we can do to help premature births. after i became pregnant with

4:54:20 to 4:54:42( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: riker i was monitored closely. i started shots at 16 weeks which continued for 36 weeks. she had shots for 20 consecutive treatments, one a week for 20 weeks. i'm convinced these shots allowed me to carry the pregnancy to term. understand when a doctor sees someone -- when a doctor sees

4:54:43 to 4:55:06( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: someone like karen who has -- who has had a pregnancy like she had where a baby was born that prematurely, that doctor understands a progesterone can make a huge difference in carrying her baby to full term. rye kerr was born at 38 weeks, my halloween baby, she writes.

4:55:07 to 4:55:30( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: my husband is a fighter. i'm an attorney. we look forward to more children in the near future but the cost of this shot concerns us greatly. we experienced the horrible pain of losing a child. no mother or father should have to go through this pain. she writes signed sincerely

4:55:31 to 4:55:51( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: karen, thad, r eu -- and riker. today is karen's birthday. i thank karen for sharing her story and to to patients in toledo and youngstown who have spoken out about this. i'm optimistic we can continue to find ways to ensure that the majority of women in this

4:55:52 to 4:56:14( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: country will still have access to affordable versions this have critical lifesaving injection. it shouldn't take public outrage. it shouldn't take congressional action. it shouldn't take the f.d.a. altering a policy it normally doesn't alter for a company to do the right thing. mr. president, you know in the state of oregon with the unemployment in your state, the unemployment in my state, the

4:56:15 to 4:56:36( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: problems we have as a nation on 0 so many levels that this is particularly outrageous, because this is a public health, this progesterone is a public health pharmacy compound that has worked and meant many more women will have safe births with a growing healthy child, contrasted to if they don't have

4:56:37 to 4:56:57( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: the opportunity to get this progesterone at a reasonable rate, at a reasonable price, we know what happens then. rest assured, mr. president, we'll keep up the outrage and we'll continue to move through congress if that's what it takes to get this progesterone at an affordable price. it is an outrage what k.v.

4:56:58 to 4:57:18( Edit History Discussion )

Sherrod Brown: pharmaceuticals did. i applaud f.d.a. for changing their policy to make it more accessible. i ask k.v. pharmaceutical to again come to the table instead of lobbying congress to get their way and get a huge amount of money on a relatively small investment. i ask them to work with us so we can make this very important