A new poll of voters in battleground states finds a rare opportunity for bipartisan agreement on health care, with Americans strongly favoring action on public policies that support medical discovery into new treatments and cures. The poll was jointly commissioned by the Galen Institute and Center Forward, center-right and center-left think tanks. Purple Insights interviewed 800 registered … [Read more...] about In A Politically Polarized Year, Poll Finds Wide Agreement Among Voters On A Key Health Care Agenda
Prescription Drugs
New FDA Guidance Would Deny Doctors Information They Need In Prescribing Biosimilar Medicines
The Food and Drug Administration appears to believe it knows better than physicians do what information they need to best treat their patients. That is the logical conclusion drawn from draft guidance the agency recently released on what should and should not be included on the labels of the latest generation of pharmaceuticals—a new form of biologic medicines called biosimilars. Biologics … [Read more...] about New FDA Guidance Would Deny Doctors Information They Need In Prescribing Biosimilar Medicines
Prescription drug price controls pose lethal problems
The Democratic primaries may be contentious, but both candidates agree on one point: government fiat must rein in prescription drug prices. Hillary Clinton proposes caps on drug prices and a mandate that pharmaceutical companies spend a preset percentage of revenues on research and development. She’d confiscate any excess to subsidize public biomedical research institutions like the National … [Read more...] about Prescription drug price controls pose lethal problems
Drug Importation Equals Unsafe Drugs, Mr. Trump
American politicians have been promising for years they could lower the price of prescription drugs by allowing imports from abroad. Federal legislation has fizzed as politicians and the American people wisely concluded the risks are definitely not worth any savings. Republican candidate Donald Trump has not read this history and therefore appears doomed to repeat the mistake. In his … [Read more...] about Drug Importation Equals Unsafe Drugs, Mr. Trump
Should Drug Prices Be Capped?
Americans understandably want to pay less for medicines, and they are demanding government action. More than three in four Americans want government to cap what drug companies can charge for certain medicines, according to a poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Fully 83 percent want the federal government to negotiate prices for drugs for Medicare patients. But more government involvement … [Read more...] about Should Drug Prices Be Capped?
The Folly of Targeting Big Pharma
An unfortunate refrain among Democratic presidential hopefuls is that rapacious pharmaceutical and biotech companies are driving up the cost of essential medications, bankrupting the health-care system, and depriving sick Americans of treatment. Hillary Clintonhas honed her message to a nice sound bite: Drug companies that charge excessively high prices “are making a fortune off of people’s … [Read more...] about The Folly of Targeting Big Pharma
Using Better Data to Produce Better Patient Outcomes
The next big challenge in the pharmaceutical sector is not going to be producing breakthrough treatments for once-deadly illnesses. The industry is on track to accomplish that with 3,400 medicines in development today in the United States alone, an increase of 40% since 2005.[1] Forty-one new drugs were approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2014, the most in 18 years.[2] Instead, the … [Read more...] about Using Better Data to Produce Better Patient Outcomes
Ruling Will Thwart Biosimilar Drug Market
By , 11/30/15 The Europeanization of U.S. drug pricing that Scott Gottlieb warns about in his op-ed (“The Coming Government Takeover of Drug Pricing,” Nov. 23) already has begun. He warns of “reference pricing,” in which the government lumps together drugs that “bureaucrats feel are similar enough that they can be used in place of one another—even if a newer but also more expensive treatment … [Read more...] about Ruling Will Thwart Biosimilar Drug Market