Summary: BIO CEO Jim Greenwood gave the following keynote address at the BIO 2019 International Convention today in Philadelphia, highlighting how politicians and patients are talking about different things when discussing drug costs in the United States and why represents a threat to…

It’s obvious that cost presents a major burden for patient access to gene therapy. The recent approval of Novartis’ gene therapy Zolgensma, which treats children under two with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), was quickly overshadowed by criticism about the drug’s $2.125 million price tag. As the…

Just moments after it was announced the FDA had approved a new treatment for spinal muscular atrophy, Dr. Peter Bach was warning about a “break down” in the U.S. drug pricing system. It’s unfortunate Dr. Bach would respond to the discovery of a miracle cure for a fatal disease with such doom and…

This is an exciting time in biomedical innovation. New and highly innovative therapies are coming to market that promise significant improvements in patient health. They include a range of novel approaches to treating disease, like gene therapy, immunotherapy, and RNA interference. Many of the most…

This week, Axios reported on new data that shows “the health care services that rack up the highest out-of-pocket costs for patients aren't the same ones that cost the most to the health care system overall.” While hospital care eats up the lion’s share of health care spending—a staggering $1.1…

In a recent piece for The Washington Post, author Christopher Rowland inaccurately suggested that the federal government has the power to effectively impose price controls over products that have a link to federally-funded research through its patent “march-in” rights under the Bayh-Dole…

This week, Editorial Board writers for The Wall Street Journal examined a policy proposal in Florida to import prescription drugs from Canada. But as the writers warn, such a move would be “impractical, unsafe and unlikely” to reduce prices for patients and consumers at the pharmacy counter. “When…

Dr. Gregory Dolin of the Center for Medicine and Law at the University of Baltimore School of Law shared his objections to legislative proposals that falsely link drug costs with patents in an op-ed that ran in The Washington Times this week. As Dolin states, current legislative proposals would…

Writing for The Hill, BIO’s President and CEO Jim Greenwood offered praise to the Senate Finance Committee for calling on pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) to testify before Congress but also warned of their deceptive tactics aimed to bolster their bottom-lines. “PBMs were originally…

Tomorrow, the Senate Finance Committee will examine the role of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) in the drug cost ecosystem. For years, these Fortune 100 companies largely escaped scrutiny for their role in deciding what patients pay out of pocket for medicines, but that’s finally starting to…