Drug Innovation
Commentary
Read the latest on prescription drug pricing
Bernie’s Anti-Pharma Crusade Is Not In Patients’ Interests
Next week, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee will convene to hear testimony from the CEOs of Johnson & Johnson, Merck, and Bristol Myers Squibb on the prices of their drugs. The executives agreed to testify after the committee’s chair, Vermont socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., threatened to ...
Sally C. Pipes
January 30, 2024
Commentary
Read the latest on Florida's drug importation plan
Fla’s Drug Importation Plan Only Creates More Problems
The logic behind Florida’s new drug-importation program, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration formally approved earlier this month, might seem straightforward. Since prescription drugs cost less in Canada, purchasing medicines in bulk from across our northern border should deliver significant savings. As Florida will soon discover, however, the devil is ...
Sally C. Pipes
January 29, 2024
Commentary
Read Sally Pipes' latest at Forbes
Florida’s Drug Importation Plan Is A Bipartisan Blunder
It’s not every day that President Joe Biden and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis agree. But that’s exactly what happened this month, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration green-lit Florida’s request to import certain prescription drugs from Canada, where they’re cheaper. “Canada has the same drugs. They’re like 25 cents on the ...
Sally C. Pipes
January 22, 2024
Blog
Read how Biden plan would hurt medical innovation
The Biden Administration Abuses Inflation to Attack Medical Innovation
It is theoretically bankrupt because price changes for individual goods and services reflect unique market factors in addition to broad-based inflation trends. There is no reason to expect any good’s price changes to always equal the average of all price changes (e.g., measured inflation). For instance, a deep frost that ...
Wayne Winegarden
December 19, 2023
Commentary
Reining in the true culprit behind critical medicine shortages
Drug shortages in the United States have reached crisis levels. The Food and Drug Administration reports that nearly 140 medicines are currently in short supply. That figure includes more than a dozen cancer drugs, which has forced doctors and patients to confront the dangerous possibility of rationing. These shortages threaten ...
Sally C. Pipes
December 17, 2023
Commentary
Giving The Gov’t Drug Patent March-In Authority Is Bad Policy
In early December, the Biden administration announced a proposal on exercising march-in rights on taxpayer-funded drugs and other inventions that allows prices to “be a factor in considering whether a drug is accessible to the public.” This is a terrible idea. As the Congressional Research Service summarized, it is an ...
Wayne Winegarden
December 13, 2023
Commentary
Reforming PBM Practices Would Improve The Pharmacy Market
Patients, the ultimate healthcare arbiter, continue to bear the costs from the perverse incentives driving the pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) market. Because of these disincentives patients pay excessive out-of-pocket costs. Just as troubling, the misaligned incentives create impediments that dictate where patients can fill their prescriptions and which prescriptions they can ...
Wayne Winegarden
December 4, 2023
Commentary
The Federal Trade Commission’s Assault On Growth
The FTC’s mission is to protect consumers by ensuring that markets are competitive, not to protect competitors. Presumably, the Commissioners imagine that the theoretical harm to competitors will somehow make consumers worse off, but if this sounds far-fetched, this is precisely what an FTC administrative judge concluded when hearing the ...
Wayne Winegarden
October 31, 2023
Commentary
Government Regulation Threatens Life-Saving Innovation
Drug Companies Are Delivering a “Golden Age of Medicine.” Let’s Protect It.
New vaccines for scourges like malaria and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. New cancer drugs that can cut death rates by half or even cause complete remission. The discovery of a biomarker that could identify people who would benefit from investigational drugs for Parkinson’s Disease. Breakthrough treatments that curb obesity ...
Sally C. Pipes
September 6, 2023
Read the latest on prescription drug pricing
Bernie’s Anti-Pharma Crusade Is Not In Patients’ Interests
Next week, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee will convene to hear testimony from the CEOs of Johnson & Johnson, Merck, and Bristol Myers Squibb on the prices of their drugs. The executives agreed to testify after the committee’s chair, Vermont socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., threatened to ...
Read the latest on Florida's drug importation plan
Fla’s Drug Importation Plan Only Creates More Problems
The logic behind Florida’s new drug-importation program, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration formally approved earlier this month, might seem straightforward. Since prescription drugs cost less in Canada, purchasing medicines in bulk from across our northern border should deliver significant savings. As Florida will soon discover, however, the devil is ...
Read Sally Pipes' latest at Forbes
Florida’s Drug Importation Plan Is A Bipartisan Blunder
It’s not every day that President Joe Biden and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis agree. But that’s exactly what happened this month, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration green-lit Florida’s request to import certain prescription drugs from Canada, where they’re cheaper. “Canada has the same drugs. They’re like 25 cents on the ...
Read how Biden plan would hurt medical innovation
The Biden Administration Abuses Inflation to Attack Medical Innovation
It is theoretically bankrupt because price changes for individual goods and services reflect unique market factors in addition to broad-based inflation trends. There is no reason to expect any good’s price changes to always equal the average of all price changes (e.g., measured inflation). For instance, a deep frost that ...
Reining in the true culprit behind critical medicine shortages
Drug shortages in the United States have reached crisis levels. The Food and Drug Administration reports that nearly 140 medicines are currently in short supply. That figure includes more than a dozen cancer drugs, which has forced doctors and patients to confront the dangerous possibility of rationing. These shortages threaten ...
Giving The Gov’t Drug Patent March-In Authority Is Bad Policy
In early December, the Biden administration announced a proposal on exercising march-in rights on taxpayer-funded drugs and other inventions that allows prices to “be a factor in considering whether a drug is accessible to the public.” This is a terrible idea. As the Congressional Research Service summarized, it is an ...
Reforming PBM Practices Would Improve The Pharmacy Market
Patients, the ultimate healthcare arbiter, continue to bear the costs from the perverse incentives driving the pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) market. Because of these disincentives patients pay excessive out-of-pocket costs. Just as troubling, the misaligned incentives create impediments that dictate where patients can fill their prescriptions and which prescriptions they can ...
The Federal Trade Commission’s Assault On Growth
The FTC’s mission is to protect consumers by ensuring that markets are competitive, not to protect competitors. Presumably, the Commissioners imagine that the theoretical harm to competitors will somehow make consumers worse off, but if this sounds far-fetched, this is precisely what an FTC administrative judge concluded when hearing the ...
Government Regulation Threatens Life-Saving Innovation
Drug Companies Are Delivering a “Golden Age of Medicine.” Let’s Protect It.
New vaccines for scourges like malaria and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. New cancer drugs that can cut death rates by half or even cause complete remission. The discovery of a biomarker that could identify people who would benefit from investigational drugs for Parkinson’s Disease. Breakthrough treatments that curb obesity ...