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Center for Life Sciences Innovation

Center for Life Sciences Innovation

ITIF’s Center for Life Sciences Innovation advocates for accelerating biopharmaceutical innovation by recognizing that the public and private sectors both have essential roles to play. The Center’s mission is to study and advance the many technology, economic, and policy factors underpinning successful life sciences innovation—from how new technologies like artificial intelligence, genomics, and gene editing are powering the next generation of biomedical innovation to the economics of life sciences innovation, including the role of IP and incentives therein; international competitiveness in life sciences innovation; and foremost the optimal set of public policies, at home and abroad, to spur greater levels of much-needed biopharmaceutical innovation.

Featured Publications

The Economics of Biopharmaceutical Innovation: Symposium Report

The Economics of Biopharmaceutical Innovation: Symposium Report

Investments in biopharmaceutical innovation and expenditures on medicines themselves both produce tremendous societal returns. Maintaining the robust innovation ecosystem necessary to capitalize on these benefits requires the right mix of “push” and “pull” incentives.

How Japan Squandered Its Biopharmaceutical Competitiveness: A Cautionary Tale

How Japan Squandered Its Biopharmaceutical Competitiveness: A Cautionary Tale

Stringent drug price controls have significantly hampered the competitive and innovative capacity of Japan’s biopharmaceutical industry in recent decades, serving as a warning for U.S. policymakers considering introducing Medicare Part D drug price controls in 2022.

Testimony to the Senate Finance Committee on “Prescription Drug Price Inflation”

Testimony to the Senate Finance Committee on “Prescription Drug Price Inflation”

Expenditures for retail prescriptions have been roughly stable for the past two decades as a share of total U.S. health-care expenditures. Instead of applying broad price controls, policymakers should promote affordability and mitigate out-of-pocket costs for individuals.

Going, Going, Gone? To Stay Competitive in Biopharmaceuticals, America Must Learn From Its Semiconductor Mistakes

Going, Going, Gone? To Stay Competitive in Biopharmaceuticals, America Must Learn From Its Semiconductor Mistakes

America has lost 70 percent of its semiconductor manufacturing capacity over the last three decades. That serves as a harsh lesson for policymakers: Failing to maintain a supportive policy environment could set up other high-tech industries to falter, too.

Five Fatal Flaws in Rep. Katie Porter’s Indictment of the U.S. Drug Industry

Five Fatal Flaws in Rep. Katie Porter’s Indictment of the U.S. Drug Industry

In her sensationally titled report, “Killer Profits: How Big Pharma Takeovers Destroy Innovation and Harm Patients,” the deputy chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus issued an ideologically inspired jeremiad grounded in assertions that are easily refuted with data.

More Publications

Events

April 4, 2023

Lessons From the Rise and Fall of Japan’s Life-Sciences Innovation Ecosystem

Tune in for an expert panel discussion examining where Japan faltered in this sector, what it must do to restore its life-sciences innovation leadership and competitiveness, why that would be in the best interests of both Japan and the United States—and what America must do to avoid following in Japan’s footsteps.

March 24, 2023

Preserving a Virtuous Cycle: The Economics of Biopharmaceutical Innovation

Watch the release event of a new report that examines the dynamics that underpin the economics of biopharmaceutical innovation and how to maintain a supportive environment that keeps the United States in the lead of life-sciences innovation.

March 29, 2022

How Using March-in Rights Would Threaten America’s Research Universities

ITIF hosted a panel discussion with leading experts on innovation policy, technology transfer, and business, who spoke to the practical implications of exercising federal “march-in” rights and why it would be a grave and ill-timed mistake for the U.S. health, competitiveness, and research landscape.

April 29, 2021

How Intellectual Property Has Played a Pivotal Role in the Global COVID-19 Response

ITIF hosted an expert panel discussion about the report and the vital role IP has played throughout the pandemic.

April 21, 2021

Seizing the Transformative Opportunity of Multi-cancer Early Detection

ITIF hosted an expert panel discussion exploring the groundbreaking innovations and policy considerations impacting the field of multi-cancer early detection.

More Events

Staff

StephenStephen Ezell

Vice President, Global Innovation Policy, and Director, Center for Life Sciences Innovation

KelliKelli Zhao

Policy Analyst, Economics of Biopharmaceutical Innovation

Advisors

BillBill Andresen

Associate Vice President for Federal Affairs, University of Pennsylvania

DavidDavid Beier

Managing Director, Bay City Capital

AndreiAndrei Iancu

Partner, Irell & Manella, LLP

Frank R.Frank R. Lichtenberg

Cain Brothers & Company Professor of Healthcare, Columbia University Graduate School of Business

CatherineCatherine Marinac

Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

GaryGary Puckrein

Founding President and CEO, National Minority Quality Forum

More From the Center

March 30, 2023|Testimonies & Filings

Testimony to the US International Trade Commission Regarding COVID-19 Diagnostics and Therapeutics: Supply, Demand, and TRIPS Agreement Flexibilities

A TRIPS IPR waiver for COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics is unnecessary, unwarranted, and even counterproductive—just as it was for COVID-19 vaccines.

January 25, 2023|Reports & Briefings

How Off-Label Use of Medicines Drives Health-Care Use and Disability

Peer-reviewed research finds that pharmaceutical innovation provides direct and indirect benefits for health-care use and disability.

August 5, 2022|Blogs & Features

Senate Reconciliation Legislation Fails to Reconcile the Interests of Biomedical Innovation and Drug Price Affordability

The bill fails to recognize three critical realities: 1) that drug prices are, in fact, not a significant driver of raging inflation; 2) that there exist better mechanisms to reform Medicare Part D drug pricing practices; 3) that mandated government price controls do inflict serious harm on nations’ life-sciences innovation systems.

July 8, 2022|Blogs & Features

Senate Democrats’ Drug Price Proposal Would Slow the Pace of New Drug Discovery

Congress should ignore pressure from progressive activists who want to use drug price controls to move to a government-led drug discovery and production system and instead focus on more pragmatic reforms.

June 24, 2022|Blogs & Features

Postmortem on a Pyrrhic Victory for IP Foes at the WTO

The WTO’s approval of a TRIPS waiver for IP related to COVID-19 vaccines is essentially a shotgun blast completely missing the broadside of a barn.

June 17, 2022|Blogs & Features

No, America’s Drug Prices Aren’t Climbing Radically Out of Control

The United States uniquely leads the world in innovating new drugs and getting them to patients first while sustaining a globally competitive industry and over time making drugs affordable by incentivizing competition and creating generic pathways.

June 6, 2022|Publications

About ITIF’s Center for Life Sciences Innovation

ITIF’s Center for Life Sciences Innovation advocates for accelerating biopharmaceutical innovation by recognizing that the public and private sectors both have essential roles to play in advancing the technology, economic, and policy factors that underpin it.

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