Relentless Health Value

Somebody wrote on Twitter the other day that he was gonna give a talk on the use of evidence in drug policy, and Barrett Montgomery replied, “That’ll be a short talk then!” So, let’s talk about the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act) for a moment, specifically the “CMS can negotiate for drugs for Medicare patients” part of the IRA. There’s one topic I don’t hear discussed what I would consider maybe often enough. Will these negotiations result in pricing that is evidence based? Will good drugs that companies developed using less taxpayer money for R&D, drugs that positively impact the patient lives or have spillover benefits for society or save downstream medical costs, drugs that have solid comparative evidence data, drugs that are a meaningful therapeutic advancement over competitors ... will these drugs be priced in line with that value? Everything I just mentioned, by the way, are things that CMS is supposed to take into account during its negotiations. So, that’s what this show is all about. To have this c