Opinion: Ensuring most-favored nation drug pricing doesn’t sicken us
“Lowering drug prices to European benchmarks would ultimately reduce innovation and cost American consumers just over half a year of life expectancy.”
The Trump administration faces a huge task under the president’s latest executive order: develop pricing targets in the next 30 days for thousands of drugs to equalize what Americans pay compared with patients overseas.
They can accomplish his larger goal by embracing this opportunity to bring some rational thinking to the drug pricing system. They must press the biopharmaceutical industry to establish measures of value that recognize what drugs are really worth to patients. It is the best way to achieve fair prices that can be successfully exported and ensure the biomedical industry — one of few sectors where America is the undisputed leader — continues to innovate. Or it all could go horribly awry.
