Drug Companies Seek Deal to Stall Generic Competitors

Prominent drug companies are making a last-minute push in Congress to forestall cheaper generic versions of some popular medicines that bring them hundreds of millions of dollars.

The drug companies, led by New Jersey-based Bristol-Myers Squibb, are proposing to pay the government to extend their market monopolies on best-selling brand-name drugs such as the cancer treatment Taxol and the allergy medicine Claritin.

The companies’ money would be used for research on cancer, heart disease, AIDS and other diseases. In return, generic makers of such drugs would be frozen out of the market for up to five more years.

On Tuesday, the Senate Appropriations health subcommittee held a hearing to examine the idea.

The panel’s chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), called it “an idea worth considering,” but made it clear after the hearing that approval is not imminent. “This is the beginning of a process of considering a very complex issue,” he said.

Other lawmakers condemned the idea as a boondoggle for brand-name drug makers.

“This special-interest deal is breathtaking in its audacity,” said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), an author of a 1984 law that controls the way exclusive markets are granted to pharmaceutical makers. “It boils down to a simple but profitable quid pro quo for the beneficiary companies.”

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), said the proposed amendment reminded him of a $50-billion tax break for the tobacco industry that was slipped into a bill just before Congress recessed for the summer. The bill passed, but when the provision became public, embarrassed lawmakers were forced to undo it.

But Jane Kramer, a spokeswoman for Bristol-Myers Squibb, cited a long list of patient advocacy groups, from breast cancer survivors to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, that support the proposal because it would provide research money for their causes.

She acknowledged that as the nation’s largest maker of anti-cancer drugs, the company has financially supported many of the patient groups that are now backing the legislation.

The provision could apply to any drug approved in the last five years, potentially dozens of them.