SPECIAL ALERT: Adopting Foreign Price Controls is a Destructive Way to Address Drug Affordability

Some bad ideas, no matter how harmful they are, just keep coming back around. We’re seeing that now with an ongoing effort on Capitol Hill to tie drug prices in the United States to those of foreign countries that rely on heavy-handed government price controls.

Just months after the Trump Administration tried to advance regulations that would have linked Medicare Part B (drugs that are administered by a physician) prices to those of other nations – that effort is currently placed on hold by the Biden Administration and now Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is pushing an even more damaging version of this approach through legislation.

Senator Sanders – and Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) in the House – is recruiting cosponsors for his “Prescription Drug Relief Act.” Under the Sanders bill, market-based negotiations would be thrown out the window and the government would mandate that prescription drugs in the U.S. could not cost more than the median price of those drugs in five countries – Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Japan. If the U.S. price exceeds that ceiling, the government could swoop in and wipe out the manufacturer’s patent exclusivity.

Senator Sanders and Representative Khanna are selling this as a pro-patient idea. Actually, it’s anything but. Trying to make our healthcare system imitate those of Europe and Asia is an extreme apples-to-oranges comparison. There is a reason that the lion’s share of biopharmaceutical innovation – and, with it, pharmaceutical access – takes place in the United States. Over the last 10 years, 90 percent of all new medicines developed are available to patients in the U.S. In France, that number is only 50 percent. In Canada, even less than that. Our current system enables us to benefit from the development of new and more effective pharmaceuticals.

If the Sanders bill became law, it would have a devastating effect on the innovation taking place to develop new treatments and cures for diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, cancer, and many other health conditions. Investors will not devote dollars to the development of therapies that will be subject, directly or indirectly, to harsh government price controls.

It’s right to pursue greater affordability but not at a tradeoff that includes a diminished ability to fight disease. Government can take steps to address patient out-of-pocket costs and can also use trade negotiations to push other countries to pay more of their fair share toward drug development, but we shouldn’t sacrifice our current level of medical innovation. It’s important that we encourage our Senators and Representatives to NOT cosponsor the Sanders or Khanna bills.

Best, Thair