Welcome to the Week in Review.
P4ADNOW and AARP Send Letter on OPRHAN Cures to Senate
To safeguard hard-fought and cost-saving drug price reforms, P4ADNow and AARP sent a joint letter to all Senators to oppose the inclusion of the ORPHAN Cures Act in the reconciliation bill. At a time when nine in ten Americans want further action from Congress to lower the price of prescription drugs and an overwhelming majority support giving Medicare the power to negotiate lower drug prices for ALL drugs, including this policy in the reconciliation package would be a step backward. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that the ORPHAN Cures Act would increase federal spending by $4.87 billion over the next 10 years. That’s billions of dollars going straight into the pockets of big drug companies. We’re urging Congress to put patients first rather than bend to the whims of greedy drug manufacturers. — [P4ADNow, AV, CBO]
Most Favored Nation: One Month Out
This week marked 30 days since President Trump issued his executive order to align U.S. drug prices with other high-income nations through the “Most-Favored-Nation” (MFN) approach. In the U.S., drug companies charge Americans between four and eight times what patients in other high-income countries pay for the very same brand-name drugs because the current system lets them. If done right, international referencing pricing could help lower prices in the U.S. But as expected, Big Pharma is already pushing back hard. Pfizer and other drugmakers met with the administration, but failed to make any commitments to lower prices. Instead, Pfizer CEO and PhRMA Board Chair Albert Bourla said he hopes prices in Europe increase, even threatening to pull drugs from some countries if they don’t pay more. We’ve said it before: any proposal that seeks to raise prices abroad is a nonstarter. The real problem is that the U.S. has failed to rein in the pharmaceutical industry. Americans know who the drivers of high drug prices are, and pharma’s recent comments make it even clearer where their priorities lie. — [White House, P4ADNow, Quartz, Reuters]
Spotlight on Cell and Gene Therapies
The heads of HHS, FDA, NIH, and CMS came together for a roundtable discussion on the future of cell and gene therapies, where NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya emphasized the importance of making these life-saving treatments both scalable and affordable. Treatments like these have been critical for patients like Janet Kerrigan, whose CAR-T therapy put her multiple myeloma into remission. But no one should be saddled with the enormous price tags these innovations currently carry, which can reach nearly $3 million for disorders like sickle cell. Lowering this cost is a priority, and we’re encouraged to hear that affordability might also be on the radar for federal leaders as they chart the path forward. — [Endpoints News, P4AD, Ortho]
In Case You Missed It
On Monday, the FDA announced it would be reinstating the internal team responsible for advancing generic drug approvals, reversing its controversial decision to dismantle the office earlier this year. As Endpoints News noted, the team played a key role in driving the agency to a record number of new generic drug approvals before its elimination in April. — [BioSpace, Endpoints News, Pink Sheet]
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