Investors Challenge Pharmaceutical Companies to Examine
Drug Pricing Practices

CONTACT: Sr. Susan Vickers (415-438-5511); or Ms. Margaret Weber (517-266-3521 or 313-272-5820)

New York, December 12, 2002 - Calling current prescription drug situations in the U.S. a "national crisis," 23 institutional investors belonging to Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), are challenging pharmaceutical companies on two critical issues: payments and incentives made to pharmaceutical purchasers, and extensions of expiring prescription drugs patents. "Financial incentives to influence drug selection, and attempts to prolong patents and exclude generic drugs, are two reasons why pharmaceuticals are so expensive," explained Sr. Susan Vickers of Catholic Healthcare West, "and the financial burden falls hardest on the un-insured and under-insured."

Since 1993 ICCR has pressed pharmaceutical companies to make prescription drugs more available and affordable to all. This year Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Schering-Plough and Wyeth have received shareholder proposals asking for transparency on payments made to doctors, pharmacy benefit managers and other pharmaceutical purchasers in order to influence the selection of particular drugs. The companies are also being asked to report on plans to implement recently promulgated Department of Health & Human Services Guidelines for preventing and reducing fraud and abuse in Federal healthcare programs. "The DHHS is concerned that marketing practices could drive up costs for Medicare and Medicaid," said Ms. Margaret Weber, representative of the Dominican Sisters of Adrian, Michigan.

Shareholders have also asked Abbott, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Merck to develop and report on ethical criteria for the extension of patents. There has been much publicity during the past year about certain strategies used by companies to extend patents on brand name prescription drugs, including changing some small aspect, or suing or paying generic companies to not market their pharmaceuticals. The Federal Trade Commission chairperson has criticized these as "gaming the patent system."

Sponsors of the shareholder resolutions are members of ICCR, an association of 275 institutional investors, who use their portfolios, estimated $110 billion, to hold companies socially and environmentally responsible. Sponsors include major religiously-affiliated healthcare corporations serving thousands of patients, a foundation and several religious congregations throughout the United States. "Pharmaceuticals often make the difference between life and death," said Ms. Weber. "As shareholders, we believe that company policies and practices can make these medicines more or less accessible to those requiring them."