Testimony: More Cures for More Patients: Overcoming Barriers

Kesselheim argues that despite substantial US government support for pharmaceutical innovation, many new drugs offer little clinical improvement over existing treatments despite high prices. NIH funding has been shown to be the most effective driver of transformative drug development while the research and experimentation tax credit has been misapplied to activities like regulatory compliance and minor product improvements. To improve the value of these incentives, he recommends expanding NIH funding paired with reasonable royalty and pricing clauses for taxpayer-funded discoveries, narrowing qualifying activities under the research tax credit, making Orphan Drug Act credits repayable for blockbuster rare disease drugs, and using the tax code to penalize above-inflation price increases and failure to complete confirmatory trials. Watch his testimony.