What's 'mean­ing­ful' phar­ma in­no­va­tion? House sub­com­mit­tee talks in­cen­tives

The health sub­com­mit­tee of the House Ways and Means Com­mit­tee heard tes­ti­mo­ny on Wednes­day from five wit­ness­es, in­clud­ing ad­vo­cates and doc­tors, while ex­am­in­ing fed­er­al poli­cies on drug in­no­va­tion, pric­ing and ac­cess.

As PBM re­forms con­tin­ue in both the House and Sen­ate, the Re­pub­li­can-con­trolled House sub­com­mit­tee kicked off the hear­ing with chair Vern Buchanan (R-FL) say­ing that the gov­ern­ment should do every­thing it can to pro­mote in­no­va­tion and pa­tient ac­cess. The con­gress­man slammed lack of ac­cess as a re­sult of fed­er­al poli­cies, par­tic­u­lar­ly on Alzheimer’s ther­a­pies and CMS’ Jan. 2022 de­ci­sion to on­ly cov­er amy­loid-tar­get­ing mon­o­clon­al an­ti­bod­ies in the con­text of a clin­i­cal tri­al.

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