Bipartisan legislation was recently introduced to lower costs for life saving drugs by Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) along with Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH) www.brown.senate.gov and John McCain (R-AZ) www.mccain.senate.gov. The bill “Price Relief, Innovation and Competition for Essential Drugs” to be called the PRICED Act www.congress.gov would provide opportunity for more biologics to enter the market place and drive down costs.
This would be accomplished in the same way as the entrance of generics helped to increase competition and boost access to more affordable prescription drugs. This could be achieved if an increased number of biologics and equally effective biosimilars would provide additional competition in the market place resulting in making life-saving drugs more affordable.
Currently, many biologics cost $100,000 or more. The PRICED Act would reduce exclusivity for biologics in the U.S from twelve years to seven years. This would lead to the development of more medicine including biosimilars and help more life-saving drugs enter the marketplace.
According to the HHS 2017 Budget request, reducing exclusivity for biologics from twelve to seven years would save the federal government and taxpayers $6.9 billion over the next ten years. In addition, several studies estimate the projected savings from the approval of biosimilars for current high-cost biologics to be anywhere from $44 billion to $250 billion over ten years.