Presented by Mario E. Motta, MD, FACC
(Recorded September 2016)
This webinar attempts to address the contributing factors to the problem of drug shortages in the US, discuss transparency in pricing, and the involvement of Medicare to negotiate prices.
Learning Objectives
In this webinar, you will hear about how:
- Shortages and high prices directly attributable to consolidation and limited competition.
- Drug shortages have become the norm.
- Limited “just in time” manufacturing leads to “efficiency,” but a very delicate balance of supply and demand.
- High prices and limited supply threatens the health care system and also puts undue strain on both individuals and funding sources, both insurers, individuals, and government
About Mario Motta
Mario E. Motta has been a cardiologist in practice at North Shore Medical Center in Salem, MA, since 1983, and is a partner of North Shore Cardiovascular Associates. He is a graduate of Boston College—with a BS in physics and biology—and Tufts University School of Medicine. He is board certified in and a fellow of the American College of Cardiology and the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology. He is also an associate professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. He is a recent past President of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and was elected to the American Medical Association (AMA) Council of Science and Public Health (CPASH; 2008–2016). He is a board member of the International Dark-Sky Association, and he is past president of the American Association of Variable Star Observers.
As a member of the CSAPH, Dr. Motta was involved in crafting a council report that details the problems of drug shortages (2012), detailing the multiple factors that contribute to drug shortages, such as pharma consolidation and multiple mergers leading to limited production. At the CSAPH, he was also asked to give periodic updates on this vexing and complex issue to the AMA House of Delegates. Dr. Motta is a member of his hospital’s P&T committee, and provides monthly reports of shortages in critical hospital medications, a now regrettably an ongoing and never ending problem. Dr. Motta has also been very active on this issue since president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, when he had testified at our state house and in Washington, DC. Just this past year, he met with the Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey on two occasions to detail the excessive rise of pharmaceutical prices, and contrived shortages of critical
