ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Today, Patients For Affordable Drugs Action, a national patient advocacy group, launched a campaign in Virginia with a new digital ad. The ad features Alexandria resident Candice Brown sharing her experience with high-priced prescription drugs and calling on fellow voters to support candidates who will stand up to Big Pharma and fight to lower drug prices. In addition to today’s ad, the campaign will include digital organizing and grassroots advocacy to ensure politicians get the message: Virginians need lower drug prices now.
Watch the ad here:
“By sharing her experience, Candice, a person with ulcerative colitis, is ensuring Virginia’s politicians get the message: Voters want reforms that will lower drug prices,” said David Mitchell, a cancer patient and the president of Patients For Affordable Drugs Action. “It’s so important that people who are struggling under the burden of high prescription drug prices make their voices heard, especially during the current pandemic, when the problem of rising drug prices is only getting worse.”
The five-figure ad will run on digital platforms across the state and feature prominently on a new website that includes the stories of patients across the country facing skyrocketing drug prices. The website serves as an action hub and gives Virginia residents digital tools to demand that 2020 candidates commit to plans to lower drug prices.
The Virginia campaign is a part of a seven-figure national grassroots campaign calling on voters in key states across the country to support candidates who will stand up to Big Pharma and fight to lower prescription drug prices. So far, the campaign is also active in Iowa, Georgia, Minnesota, and Montana.
Candice Brown, Alexandria, VA, ulcerative colitis: “I’ve been on Entyvio for the last year. The only caveat is it’s $6,700 a month. No one can afford that. This drug pricing system was not meant to benefit me as a patient. It was meant to benefit Big Pharma.”
According to a recent national survey, 7 out of 10 likely voters say a candidate’s positions on lowering prescription drug prices is important in deciding who to vote for — including 30 percent who say it is very important. Nearly 1 in 3adults report not taking their medicines as prescribed because of the cost. Big Pharma spent $298.2 million lobbying in 2019 and donated $29.3 million to help elect politicians in the last election cycle.
Patients For Affordable Drugs Action is a political action committee founded to make sure politicians hear from real patients and not just the pharmaceutical industry political machine. Patients For Affordable Drugs Action received principal funding from Action Now Initiative, LLC. Patients For Affordable Drugs Action is an independent organization and refuses funding from any organization that profits from the development or distribution of prescription drugs.
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Paid for by Patients For Affordable Drugs Action, www.p4adaction.org. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.