E&W Blog

President Biden spoke in South Florida on Tuesday, touting the so-called Inflation Reduction Act’s price controls on prescription drugs. He stated, “This year, we finally beat pharma. … Big pharma lost and Americans won.” This is blatantly false. While Democrats might have “won” a legislative victory—this was no win for Americans with rare diseases who may now never see cures for their disease brought to market. Allowing the federal government to put its thumb on the scale by capping drug prices will increase risk for drug manufacturers and discourage innovation.

The Democrats’ reckless drug-pricing scheme will lead to billions of dollars in decreased spending on research and development. This means there will be fewer new cures and could result in hundreds of fewer products coming to market.

We are already seeing the negative effects of this policy. Alnylam, for example, recently announced that it is not pursuing the testing of a drug for the treatment of Stargardt Disease, a rare hereditary eye disease that leads to vision loss. There are currently no treatments or cures for this debilitating disease.

Why isn’t Alnylam testing this drug to treat children with a rare disease which leads to blindness? Because if the drug can treat two rare diseases, the Inflation Reduction Act could subject the company to government price caps, which would likely set a price too low for the company to mitigate risks and offset losses.

Alnylam isn’t the only company being forced to make such difficult decisions. Eli Lilly recently blamed the Inflation Reduction Act as the reason it is scrapping development of a drug that would treat blood cancer. This is becoming a disturbing trend.

As usual, Democrats passed legislation that sounds helpful but is actually harmful. This policy is replete with unintended consequences. Americans suffering from rare diseases will be left out in the cold because of this legislation.

The long and the short of it is that more drug price controls mean less innovation and fewer cures.