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.
Vice President, Global Innovation Policy, and Director, Center for Life Sciences Innovation
Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
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Evidence to Inform Biopharmaceutical Policy: A Call for Research on the Impact of Public Policies on Investment in Drug Development
The scope and magnitude of the trade-off between immediate savings from lower drug prices and future health benefits from clinical development remain poorly understood and quantified. To support rigorous evaluations and inform evidence-based policymaking, it is crucial to invest in this area through research grants and improved access to federal and private data.
Evidence-Based Biopharmaceutical Policymaking: Symposium Report
There is a need for more rigorous evidence and more recent, high-quality data to inform biopharmaceutical policymaking by shedding light on the relationship between pharmaceutical firms’ expectations of financial returns from new drugs and their ability to invest in further R&D to discover future generations of drugs.
How Skeptics Misconstrue the Link Between Drug Prices and Innovation
A recent article in the British Medical Journal contends “high drug prices” are neither necessary nor justified to sustain biopharmaceutical innovation. But it misrepresents and misinterprets the facts, highlighting how faulty the rationale is for drug price controls.
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
March 3, 2025|Events
Tech Policy 202: Spring 2025 Educational Seminar Series for Congressional and Federal Staff
ITIF’s spring seminar course explores core emerging technologies and issues that are reshaping our world and, in the process, creating public policy challenges and opportunities. The course is open to congressional and federal staff only.
February 25, 2025|Knowledge Base Articles
To Do: Pass the EPIC Act for Small-Molecule Drugs
Congress should pass the Ensuring Pathways to Innovative Cures (EPIC) Act to give small-molecule drugs the same 13-year market time before price setting as biologics.
February 25, 2025|Reports & Briefings
The Inflation Reduction Act Is Negotiating the United States Out of Drug Innovation
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) undermines innovation in small-molecule drugs by subjecting them to price controls after 9 years, whereas large-molecule drugs (biologics) are allowed 13 years of market pricing. Congress should pass the bipartisan EPIC Act to remedy this issue.
February 21, 2025|Blogs
Fact of the Week: Europe Trails the United States by Over 26 Percent in Share of Global Biopharma R&D
European firms are now responsible for just 29 percent of global biopharma research and development; U.S. firms lead at 55 percent.
February 19, 2025|Blogs
How Early-Stage Science Drives Medical Innovation
Cutting federal life sciences funding threatens U.S. biopharmaceutical innovation, while China is ramping up investment to dominate the industry.
February 10, 2025|Blogs
Fact of the Week: In the 18 FDA-Approved Therapies Developed With NIH Grants, Private Funding Was 66 Times Greater Than NIH Investment
NIH-funded research played a part in the development of 18 FDA-approved therapies between 2000 and 2020, investing $670 million. By comparison, private firms invested $44.28 billion in these therapies, 66 times more than the federal government.
February 3, 2025|Op-Eds & Contributed Articles
A Bipartisan Success: Celebrating 40 Years of the Hatch-Waxman Act
The 1984 Hatch-Waxman Act revolutionized the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, successfully balancing the interests of pharmaceutical innovation and affordability by creating legal pathways for accelerated generic drug competition while extending patent protections and introducing data exclusivities that preserved incentives for novel pharmaceutical innovation.
January 13, 2025|Blogs
Streamlining Drug Approvals Without Compromising Safety
The FDA’s Breakthrough Therapy Designation program underscores the benefits of targeted regulatory innovation. Its success offers valuable lessons for policymakers navigating the balance between speed and safety in approving life-saving therapies.
December 10, 2024|Events
Innovate4Health: How IP and Innovation Are Solving Global Health Challenges
Watch now for an event releasing a report by ITIF, the Geneva Network, and the University of Akron School of Law profiling 24 pioneering case studies from five regions—Latin America, Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Middle East and North Africa—where IP rights have enabled innovators to create impactful health solutions, particularly in the developing world.
December 9, 2024|Blogs
America Can’t Afford to Lose the Early Cancer Detection Race to China
Again and again, America has pioneered new technologies and then frittered away its leadership—in sectors ranging from semiconductors and solar panels, to televisions and medical devices. We can’t afford to squander another lead in multi-cancer early detection (MCED) because of regulatory roadblocks.
