Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
An NBER working paper by Barwick, Xia and Xia (2026) provides the answer: In 2010, China accounted for less than 8% of global clinical trials; by 2020, it had surpassed the US in annual registered clinical trial volume…We provide strong evidence that China’s rise was primarily driven by the National Reimbursement Drug List (NRDL) reform,…
What factors should a physician consider on whether to use a new medical innovation on a patient? Of course, the potential benefits and risk of the innovation to the patient matter most. But another factor could play a role in the physician’s decision: malpractice liability. Specifically, (i) is the use of the innovation more likely…
That is the question asked by a 2022 NBER working paper by Pierre Dubois, Ashvin Gandhi and Shoshana Vasserman. Methodology: Demand Side Model The authors used IQVIA data on revenues and quantities of drugs sold to hospitals from 2002 to 2013 across US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and UK markets. The authors define a…
President Trump unveiled “The Great Healthcare Plan” on January 15, 2026, calling on Congress to reduce prescription drug prices, lower insurance premiums, and increase healthcare price transparency. The plan proposes four main components: codifying Most-Favored-Nation (MFN) drug pricing agreements that the administration has negotiated with 16 pharmaceutical manufacturers, targeting prices at the lowest international levels;…
Medicare Drug Price Negotiation aims to reduce the prices paid for high cost pharmaceuticals. Traditionally, biologic drug price reductions after loss of exclusivity (LOE) have occurred due to the introduction of biosimilar competitors. A recent paper by Beinfeld et al. 2025 examines whether Medicare Drug Price Negotiation enacted under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is…
The Trump administration has introduced three most-favored-nation (MFN) drug pricing initiatives designed to link U.S. pharmaceutical costs to prices paid in economically comparable countries. Most-favored-nation pricing requires manufacturers to provide rebates when U.S. prices exceed those in reference nations—a direct response to the persistent gap between U.S. drug prices and those in other developed economies.…
That is the question asked in a recent Health Affairs Forefront article by Peter Neumann, Josh Cohen, Sean Sullivan and Feng Xie. They compare the CMS negotiated prices for Initial Price Applicability Year (IPAY) 2027 against value-based prices (using QALYs) from the Tufts Cost-Effectiveness Analysis (CEA) Registry. The authors found that cost-effectiveness estimates varied among…
That is the news out of the UK today. A press release from the United Kingdom government states: A 25% increase in medicine pricing corresponds to 2 changes to the way NICE evaluates medicines; a change to the cost effectiveness thresholds and the introduction of a new value set for judging health states.NICE currently assesses value for money…
Last week, CMS announced the GENEROUS (GENErating cost Reductions fOr U.S. Medicaid) Model. The program basically is a ‘most favored nation’ style reference pricing based on net prices from developed countries. The program builds on the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program (MDRP). Specific details specified on the CMS website include: Participating manufacturers whose applications are accepted…
President Trump’s May 12 Executive Order around Most-Favored-Nation drug pricing argues that countries outside the US need to raise their prices on pharmaceuticals saying that many other countries are “freeloading” and paying less than their share for pharmaceuticals. In response, pharmaceutical companies have increased prices in the UK and even threatened to “walk away” from…