Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
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…
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) created the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program (DPNP). The aim of the program is to reduce the cost of pharmaceuticals for Medicare. A key question is how are investors viewing this policy and how is it impacting their investment decisions. A paper by Canestaro, Patterson and Campbell (2025) aimed to…
From Hwang, Jakob and Squires (2025) in AER: Insights: Cousin marriage rates are high in many countries today. While previous studies have documented increased risks of infant and child mortality, we provide the first estimate of the effect of such marriages on life expectancy throughout adulthood. By studying couples married over a century ago, we…
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) recently released a new strategy to “Make America Healthy Again.” The strategy includes: Promoting evidence-based prevention Empowering people to achieve their health goals Driving choice and competition for people A Health Affairs Forefront article from Joshua M. Liao notes three broad goals: increasing patient engagement, better leveraging…
The answer seems to be the latter. The Times (UK) reports. Eli Lilly, the US-based manufacturer of Mounjaro, said it was hiking the UK list price for the medication from September 1 to bring it in line with other nations…Eli Lilly is increasing the amount it charges pharmacies. The rate for a middle-sized 5mg dose…