SAN FRANCISCO, SAN DIEGO, LOS ANGELES & WASHINGTON– Biocom California and the California Life Sciences Association (CLSA) today released data analyzing the potential impact of international reference pricing (foreign price controls) on California’s biopharmaceutical innovation ecosystem, including investment into small company capital formation and the new drug development pipeline.
The analysis shows that implementing foreign reference pricing in Medicare Part D, as H.R. 3 proposed to do, will lead to the wholesale destruction of California’s world-class innovative biopharmaceutical sector and decimate the life-saving R&D that thousands of companies are engaged in to help develop new treatments and cures for patients around the world. The study was conducted by Vital Transformation, an international health economics firm, to examine the impact of Medicare Part B and D foreign reference pricing as proposed in H.R. 3, the Lower Drug Costs Now Act of 2019.
“International reference pricing proposals would tie U.S. prices for medicines to prices in countries with different health systems and restricted availability and access to innovative medicines,” said Mike Guerra, President and CEO of CLSA. “California’s innovation ecosystem, which leads the country in the development of innovative therapies, would be destroyed as a result. Reference pricing proposals would annihilate decades of progress and take our country backwards, and along with it the patients and families who are desperately looking for groundbreaking medicines.”
“These new data unequivocally show that importing foreign price controls into Medicare will slash investments in research and development, dramatically reduce the pipeline of new cures and treatments, and ultimately hurt the very patients who are most vulnerable to both chronic and life-threatening diseases,” said Joe Panetta, President and CEO of Biocom California. “It would be devastating for small California companies, which rely on capital investment to bring products to market. On behalf of California’s innovators, we urge Congress and the Administration to consider policies that would lower out-of-pocket costs for patients while continuing to foster an environment that supports innovation.”
