Event Session
How Generic Drugs, Patents and Price Controls Impact Healthcare and Innovation *
March 2, 2025 @ 5:00 PM EST – Knowles IP Strategies
5:00 PM ET
March 2, 2025
How Generic Drugs, Patents and Price Controls Impact Healthcare and Innovation *
It is no secret that the cost of prescription drugs is more than anyone wants to pay. But higher than desirable drug prices is a multivariable function of a broken healthcare system.
Case in point is the existence of middlemen known as pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), who receive approximately 50% of the value of the drug. So, when a particular pharmaceutical costs $100, generally $50—and sometimes more—goes back to the PBM; not to the pharmaceutical innovator that paid for the research and development, clinical trials and ultimately took the drug to market.
The popular press, advocacy groups and many policy makers like to blame patents for high drug prices, and refuse to acknowledge that U.S. taxpayers and patients are subsidizing drugs for the rest of the world, which typically employs some form of government price control and prevents pharmaceutical innovators from recouping the significant investment R&D that goes into taking drugs to market. Thus, U.S. taxpayers and patients pay more than their fair share, which speaks not to a problem with patents but rather to a failure in U.S. trade policy.
Despite the glaring problems that scream for a fix, rather than address PBMs or recognize the unfairness at the heart of the U.S. subsidizing the world, the U.S. government has opted to impose government price controls on critical medical treatments just like the rest of the world.
Obviously, something must give or there will be devastating consequences for patients who are counting on new life-saving drugs.
Survey
Reference Materials
Government Price Caps Threaten Rare Disease Cures
How Price Controls Threaten America’s Fight Against Cancer
Anti-Obesity Medications: The Future of Medical Innovation
Price Controls vs. Progress: Policy’s Impact on Life Sciences
Chamber Says White House Announcement on Medicare Drug Prices Threatens Patient Access
Are Patents to Blame for High Drug Prices?
It is no secret that the cost of prescription drugs is more than anyone wants to pay. But higher than desirable drug prices is a multivariable function of a broken healthcare system. Case in point is the existence of middlemen known as pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), who receive approximately 50% of the value of the drug. So, when a particular…
