Elite Pharmaceuticals Inc (ELTP)

[WeeZuhl]

‘You can’t put a price tag on anybody’s life’

Two years after the overdose that killed her 21-year-old son, Terri Bartlett traveled to Illinois’ state capital to champion an unlikely cause: revamped painkillers.

Bartlett’s son Michael became hooked on Vicodin and later graduated to heroin. In emotional testimony last year, she urged lawmakers to support a bill that would prioritize the new harder-to-crush pills, saying she believed her son would still be alive if abuse-deterrent formulations had been on the market then.

“You can’t put a price tag on anybody’s life,” she said.

Bartlett didn’t know then that she had been recruited into a wide-ranging lobbying campaign. A public relations firm hired by OxyContin-maker Purdue had helped recruit her to support the bill, along with local sheriffs and fire chiefs.

Her words, and similar testimony from parents of drug abusers elsewhere, reflect a tactic used by the drugmakers across the country. For instance, Purdue paid nearly $95,000 for similar lobbying efforts in New York, state records show.

And the industry’s fingerprints are easy to spot in other areas. Of more than 100 bills dealing with the drugs introduced in 35 states in 2015 and 2016, at least 49 featured nearly identical language requiring insurers to cover abuse-deterrent drugs, according to an analysis of data from Quorum, a legislative tracking service. Several of the bill sponsors said they received the wording from pharmaceutical lobbyists.

https://ww2.kqed.org/futureofyou/2016/12/20/with-little-proof-drugmakers-push-solution-to-opioid-epidemic-they-helped-create/



Quite possibly the best article on ADF's I've ever read. Every word of it relevant to Elite's pipeline, including an intense lobbying effort by Pfizer and Purdue on Elite's behalf. This article also clearly discusses the true issue with ADF legislation: insurance companies vs. drug companies. What is becoming more obvious each day is that there is a wide open space for generic ADF's.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie both vetoed such insurance mandates in the past year, citing the high costs and lack of evidence that the drugs help.

Federal health officials also have pushed back against requirements to cover the drugs, citing the “staggering” costs. For example, a 30-day supply of Pfizer’s abuse-deterrent Embeda, a combination drug containing morphine, costs $268, while a 30-day supply of a generic morphine costs roughly $38, according to data compiled by Truven Health Analytics, a company that tracks drug prices set by manufacturers.

I know of only one company currently in a position to make generic Embeda.