Press Releases

On April 30, 2019 at 2pm, the House Judiciary Committee will consider four bills to address prescription drug pricing, including H.R. 965, the CREATES Act; H.R. 2375, the Preserve Access to Affordable Generics and Biosimilars Act; H.R. 2374, the Stop STALLING Act; and H.R. 2376, the Prescription Pricing for the People Act of 2019.

Date:                           April 30, 2019

Time:                          2:00 p.m.

Location:                    2141 Rayburn House Office Building

Washington D.C.

Livestream:               The markup will stream live here.

H.R. 2375, the Preserve Access to Affordable Generics and Biosimilars Act

The Preserve Access to Affordable Generics and Biosimilars Act, introduced by Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Ranking Member Doug Collins (R-GA), strengthens the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) ability to challenge anticompetitive pay-for-delay agreements in court. Pay-for-delay agreements occur when a brand-name pharmaceutical drug company pays a competitor to keep a generic or biosimilar version of the branded drug off the market as part of a patent settlement. These deals delay access to more affordable generic and biosimilar drugs, costing consumers and the government billions of dollars in higher drug costs. The Senate companion bill, S. 64, Preserve Access to Affordable Generics and Biosimilars Act, was introduced by Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), together with Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Joni Ernst (R-IA), and Kevin Cramer (R-ND) as original cosponsors on January 9, 2019.

H.R. 965, the CREATES Act

The Creating and Restoring Equal Access to Equivalent Samples (CREATES) Act (H.R. 965), sponsored by Congressman David N. Cicilline (RI-01), will prohibit big pharmaceutical companies from engaging in anti-competitive conduct to prevent generic versions of prescription drugs from entering the marketplace. The CREATES Act is co-sponsored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (NY-10), Full Committee Ranking Member Doug Collins (GA-09), and Subcommittee Ranking Member Congressman James Sensenbrenner (WI-05). The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that Cicilline’s proposal will save taxpayers $3.9 billion.

H.R. 2374, the Stop STALLING Act

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries’s (NY-08) Stop Significant and Time-wasting Abuse Limiting Legitimate Innovation of New Generics (Stop STALLING) Act will curb the abuse of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) petition process and expand access to prescription drugs by reducing incentives for branded pharmaceutical companies to interfere with the regulatory approval of generics and biosimilars that compete with their own products.

H.R. 2376, the Prescription Pricing for the People Act of 2019

Prescription Pricing for the People Act of 2019, introduced by Ranking Member Doug Collins (R-GA) and Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), would require that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) conduct a study on the state of competition in the drug supply chain. This study would focus on whether pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, have engaged in any anti-competitive practices, such as steering patients to pharmacies for anti-competitive purposes, giving such pharmacies more favorable rates than it offers to competing pharmacies, or using its market power to depress the use of lower-cost prescription drugs.