Research & Insights

The Drug Pricing Lab conducts non-partisan, independent research. We make our work accessible and informative to policymakers and the general audience alike. Browse our featured research or explore our work by article type.
What A Waste! The National Academy Of Medicine’s Report On…
Why Congress should not follow the National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine’s recommendation to remove the JW modifier.
Health Affairs Blog 07/09/2021
Value-Based Management of Specialty Drugs: Practical Considerations and Implications for…
Not all approaches are suited to meeting policy makers and health plans’ goals of managing specialty drugs based on their value. Researchers conducted a qualitative study with Blue Cross Blue Shield plans interested in implementing value-based specialty pharmacy management to observe the plans’ objectives, strategies, and factors influencing their ability to execute on these strategies.
AJMC 05/13/2021
Pharmaceutical Products and Their Value: Lessons Learned and the Path…
Value-based pricing has emerged as an alternative to prices determined by what the market will bear. But which agreements are truly "value-based"?
Value in Health 03/29/2021
Priceless Knowledge: Attitudes and Awareness Around Drug Pricing Among US…
Medical students' education covers topics spanning health, disease, and treatment, but what about drug pricing and their role as prescribers?
Medical Science Educator 01/13/2021
Who Is Sowing Seeds of Confusion About The QALY?
Industry sponsorship of patient advocacy groups opposing the QALY threatens to undermine not just the QALY but also an objective analysis of policy decisions.
Health Affairs 07/24/2020
CMS's Proposed Medicaid Best Price Loophole for Value-Based Purchasing of…
The administration has proposed a loophole in the Medicaid Best Price rules that would dismiss linking the drug's effectiveness to its price.
HA Blog 07/06/2020
Pharmaceutical Products and Their Value
Steep increases in prices and spending on prescription drugs in the United States have triggered public outrage and questions about their value.
Value in Health 03/29/2020
Understanding the Rewards of Successful Drug Development: Thinking Inside the…
The ability to charge high prices is only one component of a complex system of risks and rewards that underlies pharmaceutical innovation.
NEJM 01/30/2020
US Drug Prices And R&D, Take 2: A Reply To…
To answer Health Affairs responses, Peter Bach and Nancy Yu point back to the research, emphasizing the original intent of the conservative R&D cost assumptions.
Health Affairs Blog 07/27/2017
Prevalence of Off-Label Use and Spending Among Patent-Protected Chemotherapies
The prevalence of off-label anticancer drug use is not well characterized.
JCO 02/19/2013
Medicare Must Study Unproven, Expensive Alzheimer’s Drug
Medicare cannot indiscriminately cover the cost of Aduhelm for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease without first evaluating whether it truly works.
Bloomberg Opinion 06/15/2021
The Drugs at the Heart of Our Pricing Crisis
The US drug pricing system is broken, but not irreparable. For large-molecule biologic drugs, enter: Production Plus Profit Pricing (P-quad, pronounced like Ahab's seagoing vessel).
NYTimes 03/15/2021
COVID-19 Reduced Average Life Expectancy of Americans by Five Days,…
The CDC made a mistake.
STAT 02/25/2021
Instead of debating 'first-shot' vs 'set-aside' vaccine approaches, hospitals' study…
Hospitals could start studies of their own employees to answer important questions, including whether the first-shot approach has downsides when compared to the set-aside strategy.
STAT 01/04/2021
After 4 Years of Trump, Medicare and Medicaid Badly Need…
Many promising ideas won't work as expected, and that's all the more reason for CMS to evaluate how medical care is delivered to its patients.
NYTimes 12/01/2020
Trump's Drug-Pricing Ideas Would Cost Taxpayers a Bundle
Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies would stand to make a lot more money.
Bloomberg Opinion 09/29/2020
We can't tackle the pandemic without figuring out which Covid-19…
There may be several Covid-19 vaccines by winter, but there will also need to be a study comparing the viruses to one another as part of rolling out widespread vaccination.
STAT 09/24/2020
The Science on Coronavirus is Topsy-Turvy. That's Fine.
Urgency demands patience, because advancement is always a product of missteps.
NYTimes 04/30/2020
Drop in Cancer Deaths Reflect Failures of Our Society. Really.
Despite declining cancer death rates, the nation still presents societal failures to improve the state of our population's health.
The Boston Globe 02/21/2020
Dissecting PhRMA's Opposition to H.R. 3 Lower Drug Costs Now…
Dr. Peter Bach responds to PhRMA's stance of opposition to H.R. 3 Lower Drug Costs Now Act of 2019.
STAT News 10/11/2019
Xeljanz, the FDA, and nine years of patient harm
Quantifying population-level adverse events in the near decade between when safety concerns were identified and FDA action
Drug Pricing Lab 05/31/2022
Atypical antipsychotics: Decades of use, unfathomable harms
Using attributable risk calculations to quantify how many premature deaths resulted from atypical antipsychotic use in the elderly
Drug Pricing Lab 05/31/2022
Medicare Part B Premium Dynamics Explained
The Drug Pricing Lab commissioned Milliman to prepare a report exploring the impact of changes in Medicare Part B program costs on beneficiaries’ premiums and Social Security payments. This report focuses on the 2022 Part B premium for beneficiaries with various income levels to illustrate the payment dynamics and discusses the implications for related programs.
Milliman 12/23/2021
Comparing Factors that Influence Pharmaceutical Pricing and Access in the…
Drug prices in the United States are some of the highest in the world, which has triggered several policy proposals aimed at adopting pricing strategies used by other countries.
Drug Pricing Lab 12/20/2021
Biosimilars in Medicare Part D: pricing dynamics and considerations
The Drug Pricing Lab engaged Milliman to prepare a report summarizing the pricing dynamics affecting utilization of biosimilars in the current Medicare Part D marketplace and under the proposed Part D benefit design in the Build Back Better Act.

This report was commissioned by the Drug Pricing Lab.
Milliman 12/14/2021
Evaluating Industry’s Drug Pricing Claims
A closer look at three of PhRMA’s most cited talking points.
Drug Pricing Lab 11/18/2021
Production Plus Profit Pricing (P-quad) FAQ
08/17/2021
Biosimilars: Market Changes do not equal policy success
Numerous articles and reports have trumpeted biosimilar market growth, but it's critical we do not lose sight of the sole objective for creating the biosimilar market: to reduce the cost of older biologic drugs for society and taxpayers.
Drug Pricing Lab 03/15/2021
Bottom-Up Pricing Estimate for P-quad
How much would biologic drugs cost under P-quad pricing? Two approaches to estimating fully loaded costs plus a profit (10% and 20% examined) suggest net discounts from current prices would be at least 65% to 75%
Drug Pricing Lab 03/12/2021
Ethics of Clinical Trials to Evaluate Biosimilars
Biosimilars require extensive, expensive, and time-consuming human testing prior to market entry, a process vastly different than generics. So why are we still doing them?
MedRx IV 03/09/2021
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