Representatives Scott Peters (D-Calif.) and Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) said policymakers need to strike a balance between savings and innovation in the wake of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which was passed about two years. back.
Peters, who represents San Diego, where several drug manufacturers are based, has frequently rejected his party’s boldest plans to lower drug costs. He warned Thursday against a short-term focus on savings without considering the long-term costs to Americans.
“You wouldn’t come home and tell your family we can save $10,000 if we don’t fix the roof because you think about the $30,000 you’re going to lose next year when it rains,” he said.
The IRA for the first time authorized Medicare to negotiate the cost of pharmaceuticals, starting with a list of 10 widely used and relatively high-cost drugs.
Although Peters supported the IRA, he warned that if lawmakers went too far in restricting profits, drug manufacturers would have no incentive to spend on developing new drugs.
“They can’t get a return, they won’t make those investments,” he said of drug producers.
The panel, “Medicare & Drug Pricing: Time to Think Differently,” was organized by The Hill and sponsored by the Alliance for Aging Research. Steve Scully, a contributing editor at The Hill, moderated the discussion.
Peters highlighted the importance of encouraging drugmakers to innovate, citing foreign dominance of the once-American semiconductor chip industry as a warning for the future of the U.S. pharmaceutical industry.
“The innovation economy is very important and this is part of it,” he said. “We’re competing with people who want to take it.”
In May 2021, Peters joined nine fellow House Democrats to protest an early version of the IRA at a Letter to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). He said the initial version “would have made medicines eligible for trading the moment they were launched”, which threatened to “kill the industry”.
“We achieved the goal of protecting patients over the counter for $2,000 a year,” he said of the IRA. “We also added an insulin spending cap of $35, so we provide seniors with the same relief we set out to do at the beginning.”
The IRA capped outpatient out-of-pocket drug costs at $2,000 per year for Medicare beneficiaries, and out-of-pocket insulin costs at $35 for Part D enrollees.
Miller-Meeks said Congress should focus on reforming pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) as a way to save on drug costs and continue to incentivize drug manufacturers without limiting profits.
“You look at PBMs, which are these opaque intermediaries, and what value do they bring?” she asked. “There is some value, but they are inflating drug prices.”
The reform of the PBM has been the subject of much debate and some hearings in Congress this session, but it has not yet come to a vote in either chamber.
Peters also called for expanding patent protections on so-called orphan drugs, which are used to treat rare diseases. He said these drugs often have the potential for wider use, but that expanding their use risks making them the subject of negotiations.
“Therefore, there is no incentive to invest in using existing medicines for new diseases, especially orphan diseases,” he said.
The panel’s experts supported Peters’ emphasis on prioritizing and protecting orphan drug development. Dana Goldman, a professor at the University of Southern California and founding director of the Schaeffer Institute for Public Policy, criticized the IRA’s current structure, claiming it punishes manufacturers for innovating and finding other uses for their drugs.
“It kind of tells people who develop drugs for these ultra-rare diseases, orphan designations, that if you find another one, if you make a lot of money, if you find other ways to use your drug, suddenly you’re subject to negotiation, and we’re going to recover some of their profits,” he said.
Dr. Jennifer Ellis, a heart surgeon and co-chair of the Health and Public Policy Committee of the Association of Black Cardiologists, said patients have a voice in future pharmaceutical reforms.
“All of us, through our taxpayers’ money, through our other choices, we all have a dog in this fight and that we, as consumers, also need to be part of this decision-making,” said Ellis about how much we should prioritize costs. .
“We need to be part of that discussion and make some of those practical, compelling decisions.”
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
