For Immediate Release:
Contact: Kelly Broadway, 202-808-8853
A Cancer Moonshot Doesn’t Leave the Launch Pad with Price Controls
Washington, D.C. – The following statement from the Council for Affordable Health Coverage is in response to President Biden’s fiscal year 2024 budget.
“The ink isn’t dry on the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and already the President is proposing to expand the price control program. Two drugs have already been pulled from the market as a result of the negative impact of IRA, and we expect more under the current law.[1] How many more drugs will not come to market as a result of this expansion is unknown. What is known is the law is creating a negative environment for the innovation we need to treat and cure cancer. The Cancer Moonshot will never leave the launch pad with price controls. Unfortunately, the budget doubles down on this failed policy resulting in fewer cures.”
The Congressional Budget Office estimated the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) would reduce biopharmaceutical manufacturer R&D spending that would lead to fewer drugs on the market by about 1 over the 2022-2031 period, about 4 over the subsequent decade, and about 5 over the decade after that. The University of Chicago found a similar approach would lower R&D spending by 29 to 60 percent from 2021 to 2039, which translates to somewhere between 167 to 342 fewer new drug approvals during that period. According to an analysis of SEC filings and investor calls conducted by Horizon Government Affairs, that number is already 2 products seven months after the law was signed, but four years before price controls take effect. The IRA policies are already changing investment decisions that limit new treatments well before policy changes.