Health Care Innovation
Commentary
Defining a Medicines’ Value versus its Price
When it comes to determining value, the U.S. health care system faces unique challenges. Without a better approach, the twin goals of continued innovation and broad-based drug affordability will be difficult, if not impossible, to maintain. Value assessment models are quickly becoming the approach du jour to overcome these challenges. However, value ...
Wayne H Winegarden
September 5, 2019
Commentary
Cutting Medical Costs Can Be a Bargain
Much of the medical progress in the past half-century has involved expensive, high-tech diagnostic tests and therapies. But it would be a mistake to gainsay the value of inexpensive, low-tech innovations. Consider the problem of falls, which are both a cause and effect of declining health in the elderly. They ...
Henry Miller, M.S., M.D.
September 4, 2019
California
‘Pay-for-Delay’ Generic Drug Bill Will Harm Californians
San Diegans and all Californians will pay a high price should a bill introduced by Assemblyman Jim Wood, a Democrat from Santa Rosa, become law. Proponents claim the bill is necessary to rein in anti-competitive practices by the pharmaceutical industry, but in reality, it will delay generic entry and raise the ...
Wayne Winegarden
August 27, 2019
Commentary
More Competition Will Improve Drug Affordability
Making medicines more affordable for patients promises to be a top policy priority for Congress when it returns from its August recess. Achieving this goal does not require new, elaborate, government programs or regulations. It requires reforms that will empower biosimilars to more effectively compete against originator biologics. To see ...
Wayne Winegarden
August 26, 2019
Commentary
Americans Support Paying for Miracle Cures
Without pro-market payment reforms, cutting edge medical treatments known as gene therapies run the risk of becoming the dance that no one attends. Gene therapies are not medicines, instead, they are akin to an organ transplant. These procedures typically use re-engineered viruses to repair, replace, or shut off malfunctioning genes ...
Wayne Winegarden
August 5, 2019
Commentary
Don’t Slash Medicare In Last – Minute Budget Agreement
The weather isn’t the only thing heating up in Washington. White House officials are feverishly negotiating with congressional leaders to raise the debt ceiling and reach a two-year budget deal that averts more than $126 billion in automatic spending cuts. Democrats want the deal to dramatically raise domestic spending levels. Republicans ...
Sally C. Pipes
July 22, 2019
Health Care
ISSUE BRIEF: Increased Use of Biosimilars Could Bring Billions in Savings for Patients, Providers, Taxpayers
Biosimilars have the potential to realize billions in savings for the health care system if reforms are enacted to incent their market share to grow, according to a new issue brief issued today by the Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the California-based, free-market think tank, the Pacific Research ...
Wayne Winegarden
July 11, 2019
Commentary
Trump’s Healthcare Contradictions Threaten Beneficial Reforms
The Trump Administration is proposing a litany of contradictory healthcare reforms. Some reforms will empower patients, improve incentives, and strengthen the healthcare system. Others empower bureaucrats, worsen incentives, and will restrict patients’ access to needed healthcare treatments. A better outcome will only emerge if the Administration jettisons the ill-advised proposals ...
Wayne Winegarden
July 9, 2019
Commentary
Cost-Saving Biosimilars’ Many Obstacles
Innovating new drugs is an expensive and uncertain business, typically taking 10-12 years and costing, on average, $2.55 billion to bring a new product to market. The risks are enormous, and deserve significant financial rewards; at the same time, it’s undeniable that the costs of many new, complex drugs are ...
Henry Miller, M.S., M.D.
June 28, 2019
Commentary
Flawed WHO Study Could Jeopardize Patients’ Access to Cancer Medicines
Determining whether the prices for medicines are appropriate or not is critically important, which is why studies that attempt to answer this question must stand up to scrutiny. Studies that undervalue medicines jeopardize the development of future cures, while studies that overvalue medicines justify the imposition of excessive health care ...
Wayne Winegarden
June 27, 2019
Defining a Medicines’ Value versus its Price
When it comes to determining value, the U.S. health care system faces unique challenges. Without a better approach, the twin goals of continued innovation and broad-based drug affordability will be difficult, if not impossible, to maintain. Value assessment models are quickly becoming the approach du jour to overcome these challenges. However, value ...
Cutting Medical Costs Can Be a Bargain
Much of the medical progress in the past half-century has involved expensive, high-tech diagnostic tests and therapies. But it would be a mistake to gainsay the value of inexpensive, low-tech innovations. Consider the problem of falls, which are both a cause and effect of declining health in the elderly. They ...
‘Pay-for-Delay’ Generic Drug Bill Will Harm Californians
San Diegans and all Californians will pay a high price should a bill introduced by Assemblyman Jim Wood, a Democrat from Santa Rosa, become law. Proponents claim the bill is necessary to rein in anti-competitive practices by the pharmaceutical industry, but in reality, it will delay generic entry and raise the ...
More Competition Will Improve Drug Affordability
Making medicines more affordable for patients promises to be a top policy priority for Congress when it returns from its August recess. Achieving this goal does not require new, elaborate, government programs or regulations. It requires reforms that will empower biosimilars to more effectively compete against originator biologics. To see ...
Americans Support Paying for Miracle Cures
Without pro-market payment reforms, cutting edge medical treatments known as gene therapies run the risk of becoming the dance that no one attends. Gene therapies are not medicines, instead, they are akin to an organ transplant. These procedures typically use re-engineered viruses to repair, replace, or shut off malfunctioning genes ...
Don’t Slash Medicare In Last – Minute Budget Agreement
The weather isn’t the only thing heating up in Washington. White House officials are feverishly negotiating with congressional leaders to raise the debt ceiling and reach a two-year budget deal that averts more than $126 billion in automatic spending cuts. Democrats want the deal to dramatically raise domestic spending levels. Republicans ...
ISSUE BRIEF: Increased Use of Biosimilars Could Bring Billions in Savings for Patients, Providers, Taxpayers
Biosimilars have the potential to realize billions in savings for the health care system if reforms are enacted to incent their market share to grow, according to a new issue brief issued today by the Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the California-based, free-market think tank, the Pacific Research ...
Trump’s Healthcare Contradictions Threaten Beneficial Reforms
The Trump Administration is proposing a litany of contradictory healthcare reforms. Some reforms will empower patients, improve incentives, and strengthen the healthcare system. Others empower bureaucrats, worsen incentives, and will restrict patients’ access to needed healthcare treatments. A better outcome will only emerge if the Administration jettisons the ill-advised proposals ...
Cost-Saving Biosimilars’ Many Obstacles
Innovating new drugs is an expensive and uncertain business, typically taking 10-12 years and costing, on average, $2.55 billion to bring a new product to market. The risks are enormous, and deserve significant financial rewards; at the same time, it’s undeniable that the costs of many new, complex drugs are ...
Flawed WHO Study Could Jeopardize Patients’ Access to Cancer Medicines
Determining whether the prices for medicines are appropriate or not is critically important, which is why studies that attempt to answer this question must stand up to scrutiny. Studies that undervalue medicines jeopardize the development of future cures, while studies that overvalue medicines justify the imposition of excessive health care ...