Consumer Groups Submit Letter to Chairwoman Maloney Thanking Her For Her Work on AbbVie
On June 16, 2021, Consumer Groups and unions including American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Alliance for Retired Americans, Consumer Action, Coalition to Protect Patient Choice, Doctors for America, Families USA, Treatment Action Group, UNITEHERE, Social Security Works, and Public Interest Research Group sent a letter thanking Chairwoman Maloney for her work on the Oversight and Reform Committee, which has been investigating AbbVie's anticompetitive conduct, and for asking the FTC to investigate AbbVie's anticompetitive rebate walls.
The letter elaborates on how rebate walls raise out of pocket costs to patients, harm patients' wellbeing, and reduce their choices to select more effective treatments.
Consumer groups and unions are concerned about the lack of meaningful patient choice resulting from anticompetitive contracting practices such as rebate walls that restrict patients’ access to lower cost alternatives and more effective treatments. The groups made the following points: AbbVie’s rebate walls are not procompetitive discounts as they foreclose competition and harm patients; if AbbVie is left unchecked that it could potentially leverage its market power to bundle rebates across Humira’s indications to deny preferred positions on drug formularies to its biosimilar rivals that are scheduled to enter the U.S. market in 2023; and the FTC has a wealth of experience in the pharmaceutical industry and is well equipped to use its expertise to investigate and bring enforcement actions to prohibit these practices. The groups also encourage Congresswoman Maloney to work with the FTC going forward. The letter is below.
