Congress accelerating the decline of medical innovation

WASHINGTON TIMES

Pharmaceutical innovation sustained a major blow in 2022 when Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), granting the federal government authority to set prices for certain Medicare drugs. It marked a stark departure from the more market-based framework that had powered decades of U.S. medical breakthroughs.

At the time, I warned that such price controls would undermine future patient care by stifling innovation. Myopic price controls reducing innovation are damaging because innovation is what feeds the 91% of our drug prescriptions sold at the world’s cheapest generic prices.

Unfortunately, that warning has proved prescient. Drug manufacturers are scaling back research and shelving promising therapies in a predictable fashion. More important, the patients who would have benefited most are being left behind.

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