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The last few weeks have seen a flurry of activity with several congressional committees holding hearings in an effort to address the crisis of high drug costs for patients. As the debate intensifies around drug pricing, it is easy to get lost in the rhetoric and lose sight of finding meaningful solutions that will bring down costs for patients where it hurts the most — at the pharmacy counter. Each year, patients forego needed medications due to cost. In fact, surveys have shown that nearly 50 percent of patients have abandoned a prescription at the pharmacy counter because of affordability. (Debra Barrett, 4/18)

As drug prices have soared, lawmakers and patient advocates have pushed the federal government to deploy for the first time a powerful deterrent: a legal provision that allows it to suspend a drugmaker’s patent and license someone else to produce the drug. Now, responding to industry alarm over those demands, the Trump administration is proposing to strictly limit the little-known power. (Christopher Rowland, 4/18)

With seven biosimilars currently on the market and 18 biosimilars approved by the FDA as of April 2019, one question is sparking a lot of debate: What should the scientific, or nonproprietary, names of these products be? There are two schools of thought on this. One says that a molecule that is highly similar to its reference biologic medicine should have the same nonproprietary name as the originator. The other says that for safety reasons it’s important to have distinct names for all biologics so we can more easily tell one from another. The naming decision extends far beyond marketing and directly affects how pharmacies fulfill prescriptions for these drugs and how they will be monitored once they’re on the market. (Brad Jordan, 4/23)

Americans pay a lot for pharmaceuticals, and politicians of all stripes are offering prescription drug price-relief proposals to force prices downward. Top-down approaches, though, carry a high chance of failure. We can get an inkling as to why by looking back at Roman history and surveying the contemporary landscape more closely. In 301 AD, Roman Emperor Diocletian blamed inflation on greedy merchants. His “Edict on Maximum Prices” commanded them to lower prices and imposed the death penalty for sellers — and even buyers — who violated it. Despite the brutal power of the crown, the edict was largely ignored. Inflation rolled onward. (Robert Graboyes, 4/23)

A new drug that cures, or at least delays, a deadly disease like cancer represents a huge advance — unless no one can afford it. Innovation without access is meaningless. In the past five years, we have witnessed the emergence of revolutionary scientific innovations for treating cancer such as immunotherapies, targeted oral cancer medicines, gene therapies, and more. These new approaches are turning many daunting cancers into manageable conditions. (Percival Barretto-Ko, 4/18)

Missouri’s freshman senator likely had a number of his constituents scratching their heads this month when he attacked a valued economic engine in his own state to promote his newly filed price-control legislation. Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, in his first three months on the job, took a swipe at one of the most important industries we have in Missouri — indeed, in this country — and we need to provide important context to his poor choice of words. Hawley’s characterization referred to “Big Pharma” being “not good actors.” The life sciences industry is incredibly important to our local economy, and the interwoven collaborative work of large and small pharma is vital to every person in this state who has ever needed a prescription. (Kelly Gillespie, 4/22)

Imagine if the Maine Legislature decided that large pickup trucks were becoming too expensive for the working-class people who drive them. Then imagine that legislators established a commission designed to study the costs to manufacture and sell these trucks. After careful study, the commission then concluded that large pickups produce a $3,000 profit per truck for their manufacturers. Finally, the commission then established an upper price limit on pickups sold in Maine that was $3,000 below the average price at which pickups were currently being sold. Lastly, suppose 45 other states, seeing Maine’s attempt to make pickups more affordable, also established similar price caps. What, then, would happen? (William Smith and Adam Crepeau, 4/23)

As the health care debate continues to boil, the idea of drug reimportation occasionally bubbles to the surface. That seems to be the case of late. President Donald Trump appeared to give the notion a nod in his State of the Union address. Here’s the issue in a nutshell: Research and development of a new drug costs a bundle. Drug companies price the drug in the U.S. high enough to recover those costs and make a profit. In most other developed democracies, however, government controls the price of drugs. The marginal cost of producing an additional pill is negligible. So, drug companies have little reason to refuse to sell the pills to other countries at the government-controlled price. (Robert Robb, 4/23)