Congress has not done the job it should be doing to ensure adequate supplies of essential medicines, much less fair prices. So, Civica Rx, a nonprofit generic drug company, was established two years ago to ensure adequate supplies of essential generic drugs as well as fair drug pricing. Civica Rx is already making 20 generic drugs and saving hospitals millions of dollars.
Civica’s goal is to make quality generic prescription drugs accessible and affordable to everyone. At this time, however, the drugs it manufactures are only available to hospitals and not directly to individuals. Civica Rx was established by a group of health systems, including Intermountain Healthcare and the Mayo Clinic.
To be sure, if the federal government were undertaking this work, we could have the ability to produce hundreds of drugs at a fair price for all Americans. During the Obama administration, the US Department of Health and Human Services invested hundreds of millions of dollars in four facilities to produce vaccines and other essential medicines. But, the plants have not been working as expected for reasons that are unclear.
Right now, Civica is focused on ensuring adequate supplies of COVID medicines for hospitals. Civica, unlike most pharmaceutical companies, stockpiles drugs so that they are available when there are spikes in demand.
Civica currently supplies generic drugs to more than 50 health systems. These health systems include 1,200 hospitals and three in ten hospital beds in the nation.
In two years, Civica says it has sold hospitals nine million generic medicines and helped treat three million patients. Eleven medicines Civica manufactures treat COVID-19 patients.
Civica will shortly be producing 40 different medicines. And in the next three years, Civica plans to manufacture 100 different prescription drugs. At the same time, it is working to build the country’s capacity to manufacture more drugs.
What’s more, Civica now plans to make its drugs available to individuals through retail pharmacies. People who use the generic drugs that Civica offers should see lower drug costs.
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