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![\"Elizabeth](\"http:\/\/my.elizabethwarren.com\/page\/-\/EmailWrapper\/header.png\" "\\"Elizabeth")
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Steven,<\/p>\n
Over the past 50 years, America\u2019s medical innovations have transformed the health of billions of people around the world.<\/p>\n
One way we\u2019ve done that? Blockbuster drugs. Today, about 100 different drugs are used by so many people that each brings in more than a billion dollars a year in revenue. Just 10 drug companies generate more than $100 billion in sales for drugs that treat high cholesterol, diabetes, HIV, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, breast cancer, colon cancer, and leukemia. Those drugs do a huge amount of good, but they also produce huge profits; over the past 20 years, profits for S&P 500 companies have been in the 5-10% range, while profits for the blockbuster drug companies have been in the 18-24% range.<\/p>\n
Those very valuable blockbuster drugs don\u2019t just appear overnight as if by magic. They are the end result of generations of huge taxpayer investments, principally through the National Institutes of Health. Drug companies make great contributions, but so do taxpayers. Put simply, the astonishing scientific and financial successes of the pharmaceutical industry have been built on a foundation of taxpayer investment.<\/p>\n
With revolutionary new treatments and a giant drug industry built on blockbuster drugs, this should be a moment of great triumph. But in recent years, the American engine of medical innovation has begun to sputter. Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n Between these two problems \u2013 shrinking government support for research and increased rule-breaking by companies that have blockbuster drugs \u2013 lies a solution: requiring those big-time drug companies that break the law to put more money into funding medical research. <\/strong> <\/p>\n That\u2019s why I\u2019m introducing the Medical Innovation Act to substantially increase federal funding for the National Institutes of Health.<\/a><\/p>\n Here\u2019s how it works: Just like the big banks, when blockbuster drug companies break the law, they nearly always enter settlement agreements with the government, rather than going to trial.<\/p>\n Under the proposed Medical Innovation Act, those blockbuster drug companies that wanted to settle legal violations would be required to reinvest a relatively small portion of the profits they have generated as a result of federal research investments right back into the NIH.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t a tax. This is simply a condition of settling to avoid a trial in a major case of wrongdoing. If a company never breaks the law, it will never pay the fee. If an accused company goes to trial instead of settling out of court, it will never pay the fee \u2013 even if it loses the case. It\u2019s like a swear jar \u2013 break the law and pay something forward that benefits everyone.<\/p>\n If this policy had been in place, over the past five years, NIH would have had about six billion more dollars every year to fund thousands of new grants to scientists and universities and research centers around the country. That\u2019s nearly a 20% increase in NIH funding. <\/p>\n\n