Like many states, Maryland is considering state policy
options to control rising prescription costs. Tuesday, the state’s Senate
Finance Committee heard from 13 invited
experts about possibilities. Committee Chair, Sen.
Thomas “Mac” Middleton, opened the briefing stating that controlling
prescription drug costs is “one of the biggest issues that we’ll deal with this
year.” Ellen Andrews, CSG-ERC’s
health policy staff was invited to describe possible federal action, what
states are currently doing to control costs, options other states are
considering, and especially Vermont’s
first-in-the nation transparency law that passed last year. Others on the initial panel included Steve
Pearson from ICER talking about their work developing value-based prices
for medications and other treatments, and Caleb
Alexander from Johns Hopkins’s Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness and
the Johns Hopkins-FDA Center of Excellence in Regulatory Science and
Innovation. Senators asked great questions, drilling deep into how transparency
could help control costs, the difference between retail and final, net prices
for medications, research & development spending both by companies and
government, and reimportation. There was a great deal of interest in moving to
a value-based pricing model to ensure fair prices that encourage innovation
that can lower costs in other parts of the health system. Two
relevant bills have been proposed in Maryland regarding price transparency
and state authority to sue drugmakers for price gouging. Last month Maryland
joined 19 other states suing generic drugmakers for price fixing.
