High Value Health Care

Calling for greater transparency of cost of drug trials to challenge claims by drug companies

medicine falling out of bottle

Today we sent a letter to Congressional leaders to immediately support and advance the Pharmaceutical Research Transparency Act of 2022 (H.R. 7474/S.4037). 40% of Americans struggle to afford their prescription medicines and many are rationing or delaying lifesaving treatments. Our letter explained: 

“..pharmaceutical companies have argued that the prices set for medicines need to be high because bringing new drugs to market is incredibly expensive. Yet key evidence behind this claim remains a closely held secret. Pharmaceutical companies leave the public in the dark about how much drug development actually costs. The little that we currently know about R&D expenditures – revealed by recent Congressional investigations, for example – suggests that pharmaceutical companies exaggerate their spending.”

In fact, the U.S. is the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world.

The Pharmaceutical Research Transparency Act of 2022 would provide the public with access to crucial information and a much clearer sense of whether drug pricing is fair. The bill would increase public transparency into the costs of clinical trials and overall research and development expenditures by: 

1) creating a public database of clinical trial cost data for all drugs; and 

2) mandating that drug manufacturers report clinical trial costs in their annual securities filings. 

Keeping clinical trial costs secret is particularly unacceptable when taxpayers are footing the bill. Write to your members of Congress and ask them to co-sponsor this important bill. 

Photo credit:  weisspaarz.com. on flickr

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