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June 10, 2021 Blog, Industry Trends

Dr. Henry Miller, physician, molecular biologist, and senior fellow with PRI, talks to the Lars Larson Show about the new Alzheimer drug approved by the FDA. Dr. Miller gives the history of Alzheimer drug approvals and the controversy around it. Larson and Dr. Miller talk about the approval process used by the FDA, costs, and how additional testing for the drug would work. Dr. Miller's segment begins at the 47-minute mark.  Lars Larson National Podcast · Lars Larson National Podcast 06-08-21...

May 19, 2021 Industry Trends

There's dissension within House Democrats' ranks. Last week, no fewer than 10 House Democrats urged Speaker Nancy Pelosi to abandon H.R. 3, as the legislation is known, in favor of a more bipartisan approach that can "preserve our invaluable innovation ecosystem." Slapping new taxes and price controls on prescription drugs, as H.R. 3 would, has always been a bad idea — one that is guaranteed to undermine research into new drugs and vaccines. But it's borderline reckless to do so right as...

May 16, 2021 Industry Trends

How the New Price Transparency Rules are Affecting Stakeholders May 13, 2021 Deborah Abrams Kaplan Although the hospital price transparency final rule took effect in January, it will take time for it to get its sea legs, whether that means 100% hospital compliance, inspiring patients to use it for their own healthcare decisions or for hospitals to reevaluate their pricing based on their competition. Eventually, though, “I think it will open up the market and, hopefully, reduce the cost of healthcare,” says Sally...

May 14, 2021 Industry Trends

Last year was the first year in which physicians working in private practice accounted for fewer than half of all practicing doctors, according to a new new report from the American Medical Association. Many of these formerly independent doctors went to work for big healthcare systems. That finding may sound obscure. Why should patients care whether a doctor draws his or her paycheck from a hospital or a private practice he or she owns? But the corporatization of medicine could be bad news for...

May 12, 2021 Industry Trends

By Henry Miller, M.S., M.D., and Kathleen Hefferon, Ph.D The controversy over genetically engineered organisms (sometimes called “genetically modified organisms,” or “GMOs”) is genuine, not faux — but only because of uninformed, exaggerated concerns about the most recent techniques’ “newness.” What is faux and disingenuous are the arguments put forth by genetic engineering’s opponents. Humans have been modifying the DNA of our food for thousands of years (even though we didn’t know that DNA was mediating the changes until the 20th century). We call...

April 28, 2021 Industry Trends

By Robert Popovian, Pharm.D., MS, and Wayne Winegarden, Ph.D. Biologics are not natural monopolies, as certain individuals continually assert. This assertion threatens future innovations, greater healthcare affordability, and patient access. It is well understood that biologics have improved our ability to treat diseases such as cancer and autoimmune ailments. Biologics are also expensive; they now represent 43% of invoice spending, and spending has been growing 14.6% annually over the past five years. Until recently, originator biologics lacked any meaningful competition from less costly off-patent generic copies...

April 9, 2021 Industry Trends

As Congress once again takes up legislation to reduce drug prices, one of the most important yet overlooked areas for reform is rebate walls. Rebate walls, also known as rebate traps, block competition in parts of the U.S. prescription drug market, especially immunology, which is home to some of the costliest drugs. They can favor older, more expensive and even less effective drugs over newer, more effective, and often cheaper alternatives. Thanks to rebate walls, patients are routinely forced to “fail first”...

March 4, 2021 Blog, Industry Trends

Patent trolls have been a plague on innovators for too long. Patent trolls are entities that obtain patents (sometimes obscure patents) for the sole purpose of threatening or filing lawsuits in court and then using the prospect of costly litigation to extort unwarranted payouts from an innovative company. The risks and costs created by these entities are a clear and present danger to entrepreneurship and innovation. A goal of public policy should be to make it more costly for frivolous patent...

March 1, 2021 Industry Trends

BY ROBERT POPOVIAN & WAYNE WINEGARDEN President Joe Biden should take advantage of a bipartisan opportunity to meaningfully reduce patients’ out-of-pocket spending on biopharmaceuticals. Seizing this opportunity requires the president to recognize that the drug cost problem exists because the current system inappropriately shifts too much of its expenditures to patients. Consider that hospitals’ total expenditure in 2019 was $1.2 trillion, or three times the total of the spend on pharmaceuticals. However, patients’ out-of-pocket spending on drugs in 2019 was $54 billion, or 50 percent higher than...

December 21, 2020 Industry Trends

By Wayne Winegarden and Robert Popovian The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) finalized a regulation on November 20, 2020 that removed the safe harbor protections for rebates on prescription drugs paid to pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and Part D plans. This analysis evaluates the expected impact from this regulation on Medicare premiums and patient out-of-pocket (OOP) costs. Based on the data from the California Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC), the loss of manufacturer drug rebates would cause the average insurance...

September 15, 2020 Industry Trends

Pacific Research Institute senior fellow and economist Dr. Wayne Winegarden talks free market energy, California rolling power blackouts, and optimistic solutions to energy policy on The Roth Effect with Carol Roth. Winegarden also discusses his recent studies that challenge green energy, fracking, electric vehicles, and more. [embed]https://mp3.ricochet.com/2020/09/Roth_Effect_66.mp3[/embed]...

June 18, 2020 Blog, Industry Trends

By: Kathleen Hefferon, Ph.D., and Henry Miller, M.S., M.D. COVID-19 has turned our world upside down in so many ways, and the food supply chain is no exception. Whether consumers prefer fast or slow food, meat-based or vegan, local or imported, organic or conventional, supermarkets or farmers’ markets, every aspect of our food supply chain, from farm to fork, has been affected by this scourge. The recent, rampant outbreaks of COVID-19 among meat-processing workers – over the past month or so, the...

May 27, 2020 Coronavirus, Coronavirus Multimedia, Industry Trends, Infographics, Innovation, Radio

Listen to Dr. Henry Miller, PRI senior fellow in health studies, discuss the move by the WHO to pause hydroxychloroquine trials for Coronavirus treatment on the nationally-syndicated Lars Larson Show. TheLarsLarsonShow · Dr. Henry Miller - WHO pauses hydroxychloroquine trials for Coronavirus treatment...

March 23, 2020 Blog, Coronavirus, Industry Trends, Radio

Dr. Henry Miller joined the nationally-syndicated Lars Larson Show to talk about the latest updates with the coronavirus, including the rapid spread of the number of cases in the United States and across the globe and how different states have reacted to the threat of COVID-19. Miller also talks about the questionable coverage by both sides of the media on the coronavirus. ...

March 17, 2020 Blog, Coronavirus, Industry Trends

The excellent and informative articles “Want a Test? Depends Where You Live” (The Coronavirus Pandemic, March 12) and “Don’t Jump to Conclusions” (Heard on the Street, March 11) about testing for the new coronavirus didn’t cover some important nuances. The test kits in use in the U.S. described in the articles detect viral genetic material—RNA, in the case of coronaviruses—which can be infectious material or noninfectious fragments. Once the patient has recovered and the RNA has been cleared, the tests will...

March 12, 2020 Blog, Industry Trends

The New York Post last week published an article with the ominous headline, “Pharmacists quietly panicking over looming respiratory drug shortage.” The gist was that in addition to the rush on personal protection products such as face masks, hand sanitizers, disinfectants, and rubber gloves, the supply chains for various important prescription drugs, especially generics with components made in China, are fraying. This should come as no surprise. As the number of cases of infection with the novel coronavirus (formally SARS-CoV-2, with the illness it...

March 2, 2020 Blog, Coronavirus, Industry Trends

Title: As U.S. Sees COVID-19 Infections Spike, Some Worry About 'Grave Errors' By Adam Smith In the beginning, the few reports of a newly discovered virus seemed inconsequential and distant. The coronavirus was causing pneumonia in scores of people, but those patients were in a faraway province of China, Hubei, that most outside that nation had never heard of. “There is no evidence that the new virus is readily spread by humans, which would make it particularly dangerous, and it has not been...