Proposal for New Rx Pricing Sheriff Greeted with Skepticism - Corporate Counsel

Edward Allera and Linda Pissott Reig, Shareholders and co-chairs of Buchanan's FDA and Biotechnology section, comment on a proposed "enforcer" to curb price increases of prescription drugs in Corporate Counsel's article "Proposal for New Rx Pricing Sheriff Greeted with Skepticism." (subscription required) 

"It's a complete waste of time," Edward Allera, co-chair of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney's FDA and biotechnology section, said in his blunt assessment of the proposal. "You're going to create another bureaucracy for what? To tell people that drug pricing is too high? It's the worst possible solution. It won't go anywhere."

For some companies, when you put a [threshold-triggering] number out there, it becomes a balance sheet assessment," said Linda Pissott Reig, the other co-chair of the FDA and biotechnology section at Buchanan. "Now that you are setting a threshold for the amount of the price increase, how do you not [see drug manufacturers] raise the price as high as they can without triggering the threshold?" ... "We need to be very cautious here. We want to be a leader in health care, and pharmaceutical research and development has always been an area of great interest with great opportunities for companies to look to the U.S.," Reig said. That reputation as a front-runner may be threatened, however, "as you add additional burdensome steps."