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The rewards are eye-popping: Merck’s Keytruda, the leader in a class of medicines that harness the immune system, could attain annual sales of more than $27 billion within six years, according to estimates, more than any drug in history. Lifted by the rising tide of new treatments, the global oncology market is expected to reach $230 billion by 2024. The cancer scramble comes at the expense of conditions like multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, asthma, infectious diseases—and even opioid addiction—that have been less lucrative for pharma companies. Oncology therapies’ share of U.S. drug revenue almost quadrupled to 28% over the past two decades, even as cardiovascular drugs dropped from dominance to 1%, according to Boston Consulting Group. (John Lauerman and James Paton, 12/12)

Although lawmakers and President Trump have talked a good game about bringing down prescription drug prices, they’ve managed to take few, if any, steps toward that goal. Trump’s most dramatic proposals — tying the price of certain Medicare drugs to their prices overseas and barring payments from drug manufacturers to middlemen — have either been dropped or held up by internal bickering. And a Senate committee’s proposal to rein in drug price hikes, which garnered a rare degree of bipartisan support, has been stalled by opposition from Republican senators. (12/13)

If enacted, H.R. 3, the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Prices Now Act, would, for the first time, give the government the power to negotiate lower drug prices for millions of patients enrolled in Medicare, and millions more with private insurance. The stakes are huge: Not only would this save Medicare $500 billion over the next decade, these savings would be used to expand benefits to include dental, vision and hearing coverage and help low-income seniors pay out-of-pocket costs. (Ben Jealous, 12/12)

The House of Representatives passed H.R. 3 in a nearly straight party-line vote last week. While prescription drug pricing reforms are needed, the legislation would unravel many of the market incentives that have made America the undisputed leader bringing new medicines – and new hope – to people facing devastating diagnoses. Bipartisan legislation crafted by the Senate Finance Committee, and supported by the White House, is the last opportunity Congress has to strike a sensible bargain that lowers drug costs for patients while sustaining America’s leadership in this vital field. (John Crowley, 12/17)

While the big party-line vote in the House of Representatives last week about articles of impeachment and the state of our union captured America’s attention, another near-party-line vote in the chamber on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s legislation to impose European-style price controls on the most innovative drugs offered important lessons about the state of U.S. drug policy. (Paul Hastings, 12/17)

Prescription drug prices are rising faster than summer temperatures in the Sonoran Desert. For more than a decade now, Arizonans have seen common prescription drugs double or triple in price. What’s more, this has left many vulnerable communities, especially seniors on Medicare, struggling to pay for their life-subsisting prescription drugs. Instead of taking their medication as prescribed, many Arizonans are rationing doses or not filling their prescriptions because the cost is too high. Both options place many of our neighbors in risky and dangerous positions. However, there is a way—currently standing before Congress—to end these life-threatening scenarios. (David Bailie, 12/17)

In the richest nation in the world, every American should have access to the highest-quality, life-saving medications. And, yet, I have heard from too many Alabamians who are sacrificing basic needs such as housing, food and educational advancement to afford their prescriptions. (Terri Sewell, 12/16)

Last week's House vote to rein in skyrocketing prescription drug prices was overdue. Now it's up to the Senate and President Donald Trump to take action. Working families and seniors are struggling to pay for the high cost of often life-saving medicines, and have been for years. But price gouging isn’t the only way big drug corporations rip off the American people. Congress needs to stop other abuses, too —starting with the drug industry’s rampant tax dodging. (Margarida Jorge and Frank Clemente, 12/16)

Inever thought I’d see the day when words like “process,” “scale,” and “automation” would make news in the biopharma industry. Yet as the race heats up to bring more first-of-their-kind gene therapies to market, breakthroughs in manufacturing are often the key — or break down the barrier — to delivering these therapies to patients. (Diane Blumenthal, 12/18)

Atrio of biopharma observers recently published in STAT an analysis relevant to the ongoing drug pricing debate in Washington. The response has not been pretty. In short, the authors suggest that since two reviewed pharmaceutical companies provided relatively little innovation in drug development and were not responsible for the original invention of some of their products, current proposals to lambaste the industry are warranted — with no side effects on innovation. This follows a report from researchers at West Health Policy Center and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health which suggested that removing $1 trillion from the pharmaceutical industry would not negatively affect current research investments. That flawed study was soon dismissed by many, and notably debunked by a leading venture capitalist. Both of these analyses suffer from the same misconception: that “big pharma” lives in a vacuum. It doesn’t. The entire drug development process is an ecosystem. (John Standford, 12/16)