GekeVenn: OMEROS

Three months ago, Congress passed a budget bill that, among other things, will hand a small drugmaker, Omeros, $26 million over the next 10 years. This is what government does: it grants favors (in this case, reimbursements) to companies that are well connected to its members of Congress, appropriations committees, and regulatory agencies.

Here's how it went down: Omeros, a small Seattle pharmaceutical company, had a Medicare pass through reimbursement status for its cataract drug, Omidria. The status expired on January 1 of this year. In response to what it knew was coming, Omeros stepped up both its lobbying and the political contributions of people associated with the company. While it normally spends less than $200,000 per year on lobbying, Omeros spent over $1 million in 2017. These efforts paid off: Representative McMorris Rodgers and Speaker Ryan were able to include an extension of the Omidrian reimbursement status in this year's budget bill.

US News explains the benefit: “'Pass-through' is the technical term for the Medicare payment status that Omidria had lost. Pass-through allows Medicare reimbursement for the full cost of the drug, rather than packaging it with the cataract procedure. That creates an incentive for hospitals to use the drug instead of a lower-price substitute.” What this means is that rather than allowing the market to put a downward pressure on drug prices, the government, via actions like this, is propping those prices up.

Maybe the most influential person on the Omeros venn is Board Member Rajiv Shah, the former administrator of USAID who has been a vocal cheerleader of public-private partnerships. Shah also served as undersecretary and chief scientist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In this role, Shah created the National Institute for Food and Agriculture. His actions are highly suspect in light of his connection to the Gates Foundation where he worked for eight years and, according to the Omeros website, “led efforts in global health, agriculture, and financial services.”

Shah is also currently the president of the Rockefeller Foundation. Both the Gates and Rockefeller foundations support population control measures, much of which is allegedly and primarily accomplished via pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines.