Drug Prices
Commentary
The Inflationary Effect of Drug Price Controls
In a bill chock full of bad policies, the drug pricing provision of the Inflation Reduction Act stands out as particularly troubling. This provision establishes a negotiation process to set a Maximum Fair Price (MFP) on selected drugs for Medicare patients. Because the legislation calls the MFP a negotiation doesn’t ...
Wayne H Winegarden
August 21, 2025
Commentary
The Trump Administration Is Reviving Its Worst Drug Pricing Policies
It’s been a big year for revivals. There’s a new Jurassic Park movie, a reunion tour featuring 1990s rock band Oasis, and a Harry Potter television series in the works. President Trump is also looking to revive some of the policies he tried to enact during his first term. He ...
Sally C. Pipes
August 18, 2025
Commentary
Drugmakers Are Embracing Direct-To-Consumer Sales. That’s Fantastic News For Patients.
Several Big Pharma companies have started selling their drugs directly to consumers (DTC). This shift — driven in part by President Trump’s push for lower drug prices and fewer middlemen — has garnered relatively little media coverage. But the implications for American patients, employers, and the healthcare system as a ...
Sally C. Pipes
August 8, 2025
Commentary
Drug Tariffs Cure Nothing and Are a Tax Increase
President Donald Trump has made no secret of his desire for sweeping tariffs on pharmaceuticals. Last month, the president threatened tariffs as high as 200% on imported drugs. The trade deal with the European Union (EU) finalized July 27 includes a 15% levy on medicines imported from the continent. Drug ...
Sally C. Pipes
August 6, 2025
Commentary
We don’t need socialism to cut drug prices. Americans get a good deal
Nearly nine in every 10 Americans say that prescription drug prices are too high. Yet the average prescription costs less in the U.S. than in other developed countries, according to a new study from professor Tomas Phillipson, the former chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. That finding ...
Sally C. Pipes
August 6, 2025
Blog
Read part 3 of a series on drug pricing
Regulations, Not Anticompetitive Actions, Are Obstructing Drug Competition
The flaws driving up costs across the broader health care landscape are also driving up the costs for innovative drugs. After all, pharmaceuticals are an integral component used in combination with the broader healthcare system. As a result, spending on medicines both influences and is influenced by the spending on ...
Wayne Winegarden
July 30, 2025
Commentary
How Price Controls Make a Healthy Drug Market Sick
The unspoken assumption behind the prescription drug price controls at the heart of the Democrats’ August 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is that the pharmaceutical market is broken. According to this view, drugmakers have the power to charge whatever they want. Only a sweeping system of government price-setting can put ...
Sally C. Pipes
July 29, 2025
Drug Innovation
New PRI Brief Warns Trump Drug Price Control Policies Would Lead U.S. Down the Path to European-Style Socialism
SACRAMENTO – The Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the Pacific Research Institute – a nonpartisan, California-based, free market think tank – today released a new issue brief warning that efforts by the Trump administration and some Republicans in Congress to embrace and expand the government price controls on ...
Sally Pipes and Wayne Winegarden
July 25, 2025
Blog
The U.S. Drug System Strikes a Reasonable Balance Between Incentivizing Innovation and Promoting Competition
The government explicitly grants innovators temporary market exclusivity to provide an opportunity for groundbreaking pharmaceutical companies to recover the costs of capital associated with developing novel treatments. This was one of the express purposes of past federal reform legislation, such as the Hatch-Waxman Act signed in 1984 and the Biologics ...
Wayne Winegarden
July 23, 2025
Commentary
Greater Price Transparency Will Improve Affordability
Inefficiencies plague our current healthcare system. Politicians are quick to blame these problems on the market and subsequently advocate for ever greater government control. But government programs, which are already major players in the healthcare market, provide lousy insurance for patients and undermine the viability of doctors and hospitals. Expanding ...
Wayne H Winegarden
July 22, 2025
The Inflationary Effect of Drug Price Controls
In a bill chock full of bad policies, the drug pricing provision of the Inflation Reduction Act stands out as particularly troubling. This provision establishes a negotiation process to set a Maximum Fair Price (MFP) on selected drugs for Medicare patients. Because the legislation calls the MFP a negotiation doesn’t ...
The Trump Administration Is Reviving Its Worst Drug Pricing Policies
It’s been a big year for revivals. There’s a new Jurassic Park movie, a reunion tour featuring 1990s rock band Oasis, and a Harry Potter television series in the works. President Trump is also looking to revive some of the policies he tried to enact during his first term. He ...
Drugmakers Are Embracing Direct-To-Consumer Sales. That’s Fantastic News For Patients.
Several Big Pharma companies have started selling their drugs directly to consumers (DTC). This shift — driven in part by President Trump’s push for lower drug prices and fewer middlemen — has garnered relatively little media coverage. But the implications for American patients, employers, and the healthcare system as a ...
Drug Tariffs Cure Nothing and Are a Tax Increase
President Donald Trump has made no secret of his desire for sweeping tariffs on pharmaceuticals. Last month, the president threatened tariffs as high as 200% on imported drugs. The trade deal with the European Union (EU) finalized July 27 includes a 15% levy on medicines imported from the continent. Drug ...
We don’t need socialism to cut drug prices. Americans get a good deal
Nearly nine in every 10 Americans say that prescription drug prices are too high. Yet the average prescription costs less in the U.S. than in other developed countries, according to a new study from professor Tomas Phillipson, the former chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. That finding ...
Read part 3 of a series on drug pricing
Regulations, Not Anticompetitive Actions, Are Obstructing Drug Competition
The flaws driving up costs across the broader health care landscape are also driving up the costs for innovative drugs. After all, pharmaceuticals are an integral component used in combination with the broader healthcare system. As a result, spending on medicines both influences and is influenced by the spending on ...
How Price Controls Make a Healthy Drug Market Sick
The unspoken assumption behind the prescription drug price controls at the heart of the Democrats’ August 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is that the pharmaceutical market is broken. According to this view, drugmakers have the power to charge whatever they want. Only a sweeping system of government price-setting can put ...
New PRI Brief Warns Trump Drug Price Control Policies Would Lead U.S. Down the Path to European-Style Socialism
SACRAMENTO – The Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the Pacific Research Institute – a nonpartisan, California-based, free market think tank – today released a new issue brief warning that efforts by the Trump administration and some Republicans in Congress to embrace and expand the government price controls on ...
The U.S. Drug System Strikes a Reasonable Balance Between Incentivizing Innovation and Promoting Competition
The government explicitly grants innovators temporary market exclusivity to provide an opportunity for groundbreaking pharmaceutical companies to recover the costs of capital associated with developing novel treatments. This was one of the express purposes of past federal reform legislation, such as the Hatch-Waxman Act signed in 1984 and the Biologics ...
Greater Price Transparency Will Improve Affordability
Inefficiencies plague our current healthcare system. Politicians are quick to blame these problems on the market and subsequently advocate for ever greater government control. But government programs, which are already major players in the healthcare market, provide lousy insurance for patients and undermine the viability of doctors and hospitals. Expanding ...