Drug Pricing: US Senate Hearings Conclude With No Clear View On Legislation

12 Dec 2017

Measures that would increase financial transparency and empower federal government to negotiate drug prices highlighted by National Academies representative who discussed recent report on drug affordability, but former Congressional Budget Office Director Holtz-Eakin warns Senate HELP Committee against taking measures that merely shift costs from one party to another.

The US Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee's third and final drug pricing hearing Dec. 12 shed little new light on the issues, suggesting that significant legislative movement may still be a ways off in a stalemate that continues to favor the status quo and, therefore, the pharmaceutical industry.

The hearing was convened to consider a recent report on drug affordability by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and...