Allergan pledged to limit drug price increases. Who else will follow?

What do you do if your industry is suddenly under fire for its pricing practices, accused of swindling consumers to make fat profits?

Well, if you’re Allergan, you pledge to do better.

The company best known as the maker of Botox this week published a social contract that vowed to keep its products “accessible and affordable” for patients, pledging to limit price increases, improve patient assistance programs and price drugs “commensurate with, or lower than, the value they create.”

Patient advocates quickly called upon other biopharmaceutical companies to follow suit.

The drug industry has long had a list of excuses for why its therapeutics are so expensive. Research and development is a lengthy and uncertain process. The United States subsidizes the cost of delivering medicines to the developing world. Biopharma companies only have a small window in which to recoup their investment before a drug goes off patent.

The industry has been trying to communicate this message for decades, but consumers haven’t been buying it. Not when it was clear that the narrative failed to match a number of high-profile instances where drug companies appeared to put profits ahead of patients.

So Allergan is trying a new tack. Writing on the company’s blog, CEO Brent Saunders argued that biopharmaceutical companies have a social contract with patients. While patients do understand that drug companies take financial risks to bring drugs to market—and deserve an appropriate return on investment—they also expect those companies to make sure these drugs are broadly accessible.

“Those who have taken aggressive or predatory price increases have violated this social contract!” Saunders wrote.

The pledge comes as anger continues to boil after biopharma company Mylan quadrupled the price of the EpiPen, a rescue drug for people at risk of experiencing a life-threatening allergic reaction. The move came after various setbacks for companies trying to develop generic or competitor versions of the product, assuring Mylan’s de facto monopoly.

The public ire then seized on Mylan’s clout in Washington (CEO Heather Bresch is the daughter of a Senator) and her hefty salary increases.

Saunders doesn’t mention Mylan by name, nor any of the other biopharmaceutical companies accused of ripping off patients. But he does call these actors “outliers” in the industry.

Others are not so sure. Healthcare executives trying to tackle the issue of drug prices for employers and consumers insist the problem is industry-wide. “If EpiPen suddenly became free it still wouldn’t solve America’s drug price crisis,” wrote Michael Rea, CEO of Rx Savings Solutions, in a LinkedIn post.

“The real issue here is market failure due to the lack of effective competition,” argued Pramod John, CEO of Vivio Health, on LinkedIn. “A fair and competitive market requires three things: 1) real supply options, 2) the freedom to choose any of these options and 3) regulations that prevent monopolies and promote the public good.”

Still, in face of criticism, Allergan wants to be part of the solution. The biopharmaceutical industry is still in the hot seat. So tell us: who’s taking a similar pledge and who plans to sit on the sidelines?

And for everyone else: is this a step in the right direction or too little, too late?

Share your thoughts here, using hashtag #PharmaPledge somewhere in the body of your post.