Drug Innovation
Blog
Do price controls affect which drugs patients have access to and how soon?
Do price controls affect which drugs patients have access to and how soon? They absolutely do. Just look at the situation in Europe. For years, drug companies have been choosing to withhold certain medicines from European markets rather than accept the price constraints imposed by governments there. As a result, ...
Sally C. Pipes
December 24, 2025
Blog
How do price controls damage innovation?
What role do intellectual property laws play in encouraging innovation? They are absolutely essential. IP protections like patents reward those who succeed in creating new medicines and ushering them through the regulatory approval process. They do this by guaranteeing that the IP rights holder behind a new drug will have ...
Sally C. Pipes
December 17, 2025
Commentary
Chaos At The FDA Benefits America’s Rivals—At The Expense Of America’s Patients
Chaos has become the norm at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. And it’s putting American patients, not to mention our country’s world-leading life sciences sector, at risk. Earlier this year, roughly 3,500 FDA employees were laid off. The agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, which oversees prescription and ...
Sally C. Pipes
December 15, 2025
Commentary
Democrats Can’t End Private-Sector Drug Innovation Fast Enough
In November, a group of Democrats in the U.S. House made clear that they’ll sacrifice medical innovation for lower drug prices if they ever reclaim Congress. Patients today and tomorrow will be the losers in that trade. Read the op-ed here.
Sally C. Pipes
December 15, 2025
Commentary
How Competition Drives Healthcare Innovation & Affordability
Making healthcare more affordable requires reforms that strengthen competitive markets, as I outlined in a recent Pacific Research Institute1 paper. Unfortunately, as we’re seeing in California and elsewhere, the trend in government is away from competition and toward fewer choices, hurting patients and increasing costs. When applied to other industries, ...
Wayne H Winegarden
December 10, 2025
Commentary
The Compounding Pharmacy Loophole Threatens Safety And Innovation
The new class of GLP-1 medicines exemplifies both the potential of pharmaceutical innovation and the risks to future advancements from ill-considered government policies. The incredible benefits from GLP-1’s are clear – they significantly improve our health and well-being. Risks arise because current federal policies enable activities that jeopardize patient safety ...
Wayne H Winegarden
October 17, 2025
Blog
Learn How Drug Price Controls Hurt Patients
Big Pharma Is Not Gouging Americans nor Driving Up Healthcare Costs
Whether it is Sanders vilifying pharmaceutical companies or Trump’s emphasis on imposing price controls, they both allege that drug spending is a primary driver of the nation’s rising healthcare costs. Even a cursory look at the data demonstrates their focus is misplaced. Let’s start with the national health expenditure data ...
Wayne Winegarden
October 8, 2025
Commentary
Drug Innovation is Dying in UK, Don’t Let it Happen Here
Drug companies are fleeing the United Kingdom. This month, Merck announced that it would cancel a proposed $1.3 billion research center in London and terminate all of its research and development efforts in the country. To justify its decision, the drugmaker cited “the overall undervaluation of innovative medicines and vaccines ...
Sally C. Pipes
September 25, 2025
Commentary
Kennedy’s Vaccine Policies Put Americans at Risk in More Ways Than One
The effects of Kennedy’s vaccines policies are going to hurt Americans – and not just because more people are falling ill. Health experts, former CDC directors, and medical associations are gravely concerned that HHS Secretary RFK Jr.’s actions are risking Americans’ health and wellbeing. Nine former directors of the CDC ...
Wayne H Winegarden
September 22, 2025
Commentary
Cashing In On University Patents Means Giving Up On Our Innovation Future
Washington is addicted to taxing success. Now, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is floating a plan to skim half the patent earnings from inventions developed at universities with federal funding. It’s being sold as a way to shore up programs like Social Security. In reality, it’s a raid on American innovation ...
Sally C. Pipes
September 17, 2025
Do price controls affect which drugs patients have access to and how soon?
Do price controls affect which drugs patients have access to and how soon? They absolutely do. Just look at the situation in Europe. For years, drug companies have been choosing to withhold certain medicines from European markets rather than accept the price constraints imposed by governments there. As a result, ...
How do price controls damage innovation?
What role do intellectual property laws play in encouraging innovation? They are absolutely essential. IP protections like patents reward those who succeed in creating new medicines and ushering them through the regulatory approval process. They do this by guaranteeing that the IP rights holder behind a new drug will have ...
Chaos At The FDA Benefits America’s Rivals—At The Expense Of America’s Patients
Chaos has become the norm at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. And it’s putting American patients, not to mention our country’s world-leading life sciences sector, at risk. Earlier this year, roughly 3,500 FDA employees were laid off. The agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, which oversees prescription and ...
Democrats Can’t End Private-Sector Drug Innovation Fast Enough
In November, a group of Democrats in the U.S. House made clear that they’ll sacrifice medical innovation for lower drug prices if they ever reclaim Congress. Patients today and tomorrow will be the losers in that trade. Read the op-ed here.
How Competition Drives Healthcare Innovation & Affordability
Making healthcare more affordable requires reforms that strengthen competitive markets, as I outlined in a recent Pacific Research Institute1 paper. Unfortunately, as we’re seeing in California and elsewhere, the trend in government is away from competition and toward fewer choices, hurting patients and increasing costs. When applied to other industries, ...
The Compounding Pharmacy Loophole Threatens Safety And Innovation
The new class of GLP-1 medicines exemplifies both the potential of pharmaceutical innovation and the risks to future advancements from ill-considered government policies. The incredible benefits from GLP-1’s are clear – they significantly improve our health and well-being. Risks arise because current federal policies enable activities that jeopardize patient safety ...
Learn How Drug Price Controls Hurt Patients
Big Pharma Is Not Gouging Americans nor Driving Up Healthcare Costs
Whether it is Sanders vilifying pharmaceutical companies or Trump’s emphasis on imposing price controls, they both allege that drug spending is a primary driver of the nation’s rising healthcare costs. Even a cursory look at the data demonstrates their focus is misplaced. Let’s start with the national health expenditure data ...
Drug Innovation is Dying in UK, Don’t Let it Happen Here
Drug companies are fleeing the United Kingdom. This month, Merck announced that it would cancel a proposed $1.3 billion research center in London and terminate all of its research and development efforts in the country. To justify its decision, the drugmaker cited “the overall undervaluation of innovative medicines and vaccines ...
Kennedy’s Vaccine Policies Put Americans at Risk in More Ways Than One
The effects of Kennedy’s vaccines policies are going to hurt Americans – and not just because more people are falling ill. Health experts, former CDC directors, and medical associations are gravely concerned that HHS Secretary RFK Jr.’s actions are risking Americans’ health and wellbeing. Nine former directors of the CDC ...
Cashing In On University Patents Means Giving Up On Our Innovation Future
Washington is addicted to taxing success. Now, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is floating a plan to skim half the patent earnings from inventions developed at universities with federal funding. It’s being sold as a way to shore up programs like Social Security. In reality, it’s a raid on American innovation ...