1 July 2019 - The current firestorm over high drug prices didn’t start with the May 2019 approval of Novartis’s onasemnogene abeparvovec-xioi‎ (Zolgensma), a gene therapy for spinal muscular atrophy and the “world’s most expensive drug” at $2.1 million per treated patient, but this development is certainly fanning the flames. 

The headlines about the new drug come at an interesting time, when several policy proposals targeting high prices for innovative drugs—including ones to peg Medicare Part B covered drug prices to international benchmarks and implement binding arbitration regarding the pricing of drugs covered under Medicare Part D—may be able to attract bipartisan support.

The United States has experienced other periods of public consternation over the pricing of prescription drugs. Although, time and again, efforts to broadly authorise the federal government to directly negotiate drug prices have given way to arguments by drug companies and their supporters that lower prices today will harm innovation tomorrow.

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