Intermountain CEO to pharma companies: ‘Stop what you’re doing and you’ll never hear from us’
Intermountain Healthcare, Ascension Health, SSM Health and Trinity Health announced in January they are forming their own not-for-profit generic drug company to increase competition in the marketplace and drive down costs of generic medications.
In an interview published by NEJM Catalyst, Intermountain president and CEO Marc Harrison, MD, further explained the systems’ goals.
“If we’re very selective about the parts of the market that we play in, places where there has been or is enormous profiteering, through long-term contracting with these systems, we think we can save the systems money and provide enough money back to the company that it remains viable,” Harrison said. “[O]ur aim isn’t to be the sole generic drug manufacturer. We want to very selectively send messages in this market that if profiteering occurs, then there’ll be a strong and organized response that puts it to death.”
Harrison also indicated the new generic drugs wouldn’t fully “get rolling” until the first quarter of 2019 and wouldn’t announce which types of drugs it would initially introduce “because that will provide too clear a signal to folks who are engaging in profiteering.”
“I suspect that they know who they are, and what I’d say is just go ahead and stop what you’re doing and put in fair pricing—stop creating shortages and get fair pricing back in play—and you’ll never hear from us,” said Harrison.
Read the full interview below:
Daniel joined TriMed’s Chicago editorial team in 2017 as a Cardiovascular Business writer. He previously worked as a writer for daily newspapers in North Dakota and Indiana.