Life Sciences
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Innovation is essential to promoting human health, agricultural productivity, and ecological sustainability. ITIF’s Center for Life Sciences Innovation conducts research supporting advances in human biotechnology; pharmaceuticals; and health care policy outside the realm of IT.
Featured
The Hidden Toll of Drug Price Controls: Fewer New Treatments and Higher Medical Costs for the World
When nations implement pharmaceutical price controls, they reduce pharmaceutical revenues, which then reduces investments in further R&D, limiting future generations’ access to new novel treatments needed to fight diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and diabetes.
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.
More Publications and Events
June 26, 2024|Presentations
The Right Prescription: Policy Priorities for Advancing Innovation in U.S. Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing
Stephen Ezell delivers a featured presentation at the 2024 national meeting of the National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIMBL).
June 5, 2024|Presentations
Principles for National Innovation Success
Stephen Ezell presents on the principles of national innovation success to the Colombian think tank INNOS.
May 28, 2024|Podcasts
Podcast: The Origins and Consequences of Pharmaceutical Industry Myths, With Rob Atkinson
Rob Atkinson appeared on Elevate, the podcast of the Medical Affairs Professional Society (MAPS), to discuss the origins of negative opinions of the pharmaceutical industry and whether a for-profit model can support both innovation and the society’s best interests, topics he covered in his book Technology Fears and Scapegoats.
May 15, 2024|Blogs
The “Invent Here, Make Here” Act Should Fully Advance, Not Partially Impede, Bayh-Dole’s Mission
The bill proposes useful steps to facilitate domestic commercialization, but it overreaches in placing excessive restrictions when innovators prove unable to identify domestic manufacturing capabilities despite their best efforts.
May 13, 2024|Blogs
Advancing Biomedical Innovation With Policies Supporting Privacy-Enhancing Technologies
By improving privacy protection and facilitating secure collaborative research, privacy-enhancing technology could complement data-sharing policies and enable analysis of sensitive medical data and support biomedical innovation.
May 6, 2024|Reports & Briefings
The Relationship Between Biopharma R&D Investment and Expected Returns: Improving Evidence to Inform Policy
Better evidence is needed to evaluate the impact of policy changes on new drug development. Greater availability of government data should support more rigorous evaluations to inform evidence-based policymaking.
April 22, 2024|Reports & Briefings
LATAM Health Champions, 2024
Innovation plays a critical role in improving public health and in overcoming global health challenges. The call for LATAM Health Champions, which ran from February 5 to March 5, 2024, received more than 60 applications proposing innovative health solutions to a wide range of health challenges. Here, the top 20 are highlighted.
March 5, 2024|Events
Preserving U.S. Leadership in Biopharmaceutical Innovation
Watch now for an expert panel discussion surrounding the ITIF report examining why the United States lost its lead in other advanced technology industries, and how policymakers can avoid repeating the same mistakes in the biopharmaceutical sector.
February 29, 2024|Reports & Briefings
Not Again: Why the United States Can’t Afford to Lose Its Biopharma Industry
America’s leadership in advanced-technology industries can never be taken for granted, as evidenced by its losses in telecommunications equipment, semiconductors, televisions, solar panels, and chemicals. Policymakers must recognize what went wrong in those cases to avoid a similar industrial decline in the biopharmaceutical industry.
February 12, 2024|Blogs
Fact of the Week: A 1 Percent Increase in Drug Prescriptions Can Reduce Spending on Other Medical Services by 0.2 Percent
A report from the Congressional Budget Office suggests that on average, a 1 percent increase in prescriptions was associated with a 0.2 percent decrease in spending on other medical services.
