The impeachment trial is sucking up a lot of the oxygen in Washington, but when things get back to relative normal, expect both parties to continue to push an international price index for prescription drugs.
But everyone from biopharma start-ups to conservative think tanks says this proposal is all wrong, especially right now.
To catch you up: In December, House Democrats passed H.R. 3, which would require drug manufacturers to negotiate prices with the government based on an international price index (IPI), while the Trump administration is rushing to finalize a similar IPI, POLITICO reported last week.
As we know, no matter which party actually makes it the law of the land, an IPI will chill investment and jeopardize new cures without addressing the real reasons why consumers pay more out of pocket for drugs and care.
Biotech companies are speaking out. Rachel King, co-founder and CEO of BIO member GlycoMimetics, is working to develop new treatments for patients with various blood diseases, but says in a new video that an international price index would “directly inhibit” the ability of small biotech companies like hers to attract investment needed to bring these cures to market.
Take it from the expert: “Investors can put their money wherever they want to. Investors can put their money into apps, they can put them into cell phones, they can put them into IT…or they can put their money into developing new drugs,” she explains. “If we change the incentives and if we decrease the incentives for investing in new drugs, the money will flow out of the biotechnology industry and the United States risks losing its lead position."
And the biotech industry is not alone in this thinking. Last week, dozens of conservative groups sent a letter to HHS Secretary Alex Azar urging him to withdraw the administration’s IPI proposal, which they say relies on “importing foreign price controls” rather than the market.
What they’re saying: “When imposed on medicines, price controls suppress innovation and access to new medicines. This deters the development and supply of new life saving and life-improving medicines to the detriment of consumers, patients, and doctors,” they wrote.
Mike drop: "We’re in the middle of a global health crisis as the Wuhan coronavirus continues to spread and the U.S. biopharmaceutical industry is stepping up to research cures and vaccines as quickly as possible. This would not be possible without the enormous investment required to research and bring new cures to market—but price controls jeopardize that investment." — Mike Mattoon, BIO’s Vice President for Federal Government Relations
To learn more about the flaws of importing foreign price controls, visit bio.org/savecures.
More Health Care News:
Axios: The global economic threat of the coronavirus
“The coronavirus has the potential to be as damaging to the global economy as the U.S.-China trade war, economists tell Axios, and if not contained could wreak havoc on businesses across the globe, with great uncertainty over how bad things could get.”
STAT: Employers shoulder plenty of drug costs, but haven’t lobbied much to lower them—until now
“The new group called EmployersRx, a joint project of the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions, the Pacific Business Group on Health, the ERISA Industry Committee, and the Silicon Valley Employers Forum, is hoping to push lawmakers to start thinking about drug pricing policies that will affect the broadest number of Americans, not just changes to federal programs.” The group is signaling they may support H.R. 3.