Innovation

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On this page, you’ll find the Center’s analysis on how free-market policies can better balance the competing interests of medical innovation and competition. Here, you’ll find our research and commentary on such issues as patents, research and development spending, and reforms that will promote more robust competition.

November 7, 2024 Innovation

The Pacific Research Institutehas filed an amicus curiae brief in a case before the California Supreme Court that has the potential to devastate innovation in future life-saving medications. The Gilead Tenofovir Cases surround questions of the liability of pharmaceutical companies over their decisions on drug development timelines. In the case, the plaintiffs filed cases against the Gilead pharmaceutical company over the company’s failure to bring an alternative medication used to treat AIDS, hepatitis, and other diseases to the marketplace called TAF under...

October 28, 2024 Briefs, Innovation, Price and Costs, Studies

READ THE PDF Executive Summary Since 2019, biosimilars have obtained a majority share of most markets where they compete. The combination of lower prices (both biosimilar and originator) and rising market share could have generated up to $35 billion in savings in 2024 dollars compared to an all-originator baseline based on PRI’s latest analysis. These savings demonstrate that, just like with small molecule medicines, biosimilars strike a beneficial balance between incentivizing innovation and promoting affordability. Lower-cost Biosimilars Are Gaining Market Share The share...

October 9, 2024 Innovation, Multimedia, Policy Proposals, Price and Costs

Low-cost biosimilars generated $19 billion in savings value in today’s dollars in 2023. But obstacles in the current drug pricing system meant that billions of dollars in potential savings were left unrealized. Join the Pacific Research Institute’s Center for Medical Economics and Innovation and panel of experts for a brief, informative webinar discussing how potential reforms can improve competition, generate more savings, and better serve patients and taxpayers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m7lNXr_dAw...

October 1, 2024 Briefs, Innovation, Studies

READ THE PDF Executive Summary In the competitive biologic markets, biosimilars have reduced average prices by 56 percent. The lower prices have reduced total expenditures by 51 percent in the competitive biologic markets even though total use is higher. Developing biosimilars is a long and costly endeavor that can take up to 9 years and $300 million. Market conditions should encourage uptake and appropriate reimbursement for physicians and manufacturers. Biologics – innovative medicines made, or derived, from biological processes – treat devastating...

September 18, 2024 Innovation, Price and Costs

In a patently politicized press release, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) who is  Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, claims that the U.S. price of Ozempic is too high. As evidence, he cites generic companies that claim they can sell Ozempic for less than $100 a month, an inherently flawed JAMA study that claims that these same diabetes drugs can be profitably produced for less than $5 a month, and inaccurate price comparisons with other countries. Debunking...

August 26, 2024 Innovation

The ill effects from abusive lawsuits are well documented and include higher costs for consumers, reduced economic output, and diminished innovation. The adverse impacts on innovation are particularly troubling. Not only is continued invention necessary for expanding our prosperity, but it is also key for mitigating problems such as global climate change or finding new technologies and treatments for troubling health conditions....

August 15, 2024 Blog, Innovation, Policy Proposals, Price and Costs

The federal government has announced the long-awaited results from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) drug price negotiations.[1] The Biden Administration has been crowing that they have achieved “a historic moment that will help lower prescription drug prices for millions of people across America.” Nothing could be further from the truth. The Biden Administration has sold out patients and the hope for future cures to achieve results that pale in comparison to the benefits enabled by efficient market competition. According to...

August 5, 2024 Innovation, Issues

The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability held a hearing last month with the CEOs of the nation's three largest pharmacy benefit managers: CVS Caremark, Express Scripts, and OptumRx. The hearing coincided with a new report from the committee on the outsized role these prescription-drug middlemen play in determining what people pay for their medicines. Unsurprisingly, the CEO confab revealed little that lawmakers didn't already know. Click to read the full article in Newsmax. ...

June 11, 2024 Briefs, Innovation, Resources, Studies

A new brief released today by the Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the nonpartisan Pacific Research Institute provides the latest evidence that biosimilar competition is saving patients billions – and additional competition would increase savings even more. Click to download the brief From 2019-2023, patients saved $15 billion from biosimilar competition.  Had there been competition during the same period for two other biologics, Humira and Enbrel, patients would have saved another $13 billion, for a total of $28 billion. “The growing...

June 10, 2024 Innovation, Issues

Every day, nearly 10,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with skin cancer. The good news is that applying sunscreen can substantially reduce a person's risk of getting skin cancer. The bad news is that the federal government is doing its best to keep effective sunscreens out of the hands of ordinary Americans. Unlike most developed countries, the United States classifies sunscreen as a drug, not a cosmetic. That means sunscreens are subject to regulation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which...

May 31, 2024 Innovation, Issues

For years, the left's campaign to dictate the price of prescription drugs has focused on one medicine above all others — insulin. The hormone was discovered more than a century ago by Canadian doctor Frederick Banting and his medical student Charles Best. They famously sold their patent to the University of Toronto for $1 apiece. How can insulin still be a financial burden for some of the people with diabetes who need it? This problem motivated the $35 insulin price cap for Medicare enrollees, which...

May 20, 2024 Innovation, Issues

Congress faces a year-end deadline to extend its relaxed pandemic-era rules permitting greater use of telehealth by Medicare beneficiaries. If our lawmakers fail to step up, millions of seniors as well as privately insured patients could lose access to what has become an essential form of medical care. The expansion of telehealth is a perfect example of how cutting red tape can improve people’s lives. Congress should make these changes permanent and use the experience as a model to remove roadblocks to...

February 19, 2024 Innovation, Issues

Cancer is becoming more common. This year, the number of new cancer cases among Americans is projected to exceed 2 million for the first time ever, according to a paper published last month by the American Cancer Society. The disease is also afflicting people earlier in their lives. Cancer diagnosis rates for people under 50 rose nearly 13% since 2000. Colorectal cancer is now the leading cause of cancer death for men under 50 — and the second-leading cause for women. Statistics like these show just how hard...

October 31, 2023 Innovation

The Federal Trade Commission continues its assault on innovation and consumers’ wellbeing under the guise of protecting us from harms that are, all too often, merely speculative. In a recent example, the FTC commissioners assert that a merger of two closely connected companies poses theoretical harm to competitors. 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,...

August 29, 2023 Innovation, Price and Costs

President Joe Biden celebrated a milestone today—but American patients have no reason to cheer. The White House announced the first 10 prescription drugs that, starting in 2026, will be subject to price controls authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act. Democrats laud these price controls, which they glibly dub "negotiations," as a way to lower drug costs for seniors on Medicare. But in the not-too-distant future, people of all ages may look back and rue this day—as the beginning of the end of...

August 16, 2023 Innovation, Issues

President Joe Biden just announced a new effort that he hopes will spur the development of better, more precise cancer surgery technologies. The program is part of his administration's "Cancer Moonshot," which aims to halve cancer death rates in the United States by 2047. Ironically, one of the biggest obstacles to achieving that goal might be Biden himself — or more specifically, his policies. The prescription drug price controls Biden signed into law as part of last year's Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) have...

July 30, 2023 Innovation, Issues

The nonprofit group Patient Rights Advocate just published its fifth report exploring how hospitals are complying with federal price transparency requirements. About two-thirds are still flouting the rules. That's unacceptable. Noncompliant hospitals are preventing patients and payers from shopping around for high-value care — and inflating healthcare costs in the process. The price transparency regulations went into effect in January 2021. Hospitals are now required to publish the prices they have negotiated with each insurer for every service they provide. They must also display the cost of 300 "shoppable"...

June 27, 2023 Innovation, Issues

A new Senate bill takes aim at one of the chief drivers of the high out-of-pocket drug costs that many consumers are experiencing — middlemen known as "pharmacy benefit managers." Introduced in mid-June by a bipartisan group of senators including Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Ranking Member Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, the Patients Before Middlemen Act — or PBM Act, for short — would shed some much-needed light on a part of the pharmaceutical market that has been in the shadows for too long. Few companies exert...

June 4, 2023 Innovation, Issues

Patients in several states could soon find it easier to access life-saving medical care, if state legislators and executive officials eliminate so-called certificate-of-need restrictions for new acute-care hospitals in rural areas. Certificate-of-need laws require health care providers to get a state government’s sign-off before building new facilities, expanding existing ones, or even purchasing new equipment. These laws are currently on the books in nearly three dozen states. It makes little sense to artificially restrict the supply of medical care when our nation...

May 22, 2023 Innovation, Issues

New research into COVID-19 has revealed some troubling findings. Even mild cases can lead to lasting heart complications. Comparing test data collected before and after a group of patients in their mid-30s contracted mild cases of COVID, researchers noticed an increase in arterial stiffness and cardiovascular inflammation. That means they may face "a widespread and long-lasting pathological process" that places them at elevated risk of cardiovascular issues. Heart disease is already America's leading cause of death, claiming roughly 700,000 lives per year. Add to that potentially increased risk...