The Free Market Is Curing Blindness


By Sandip Shah

The FDA recently approved a revolutionary drug that could restore sight to 2,000 nearly-blind Americans.

Doctors inject the personalized "gene therapy," called Luxturna, directly into patients' eyes. The treatment overrides a rare genetic mutation that causes severe vision problems and ultimately leads to total blindness. In clinical trials, the treatment not only halted vision loss but also significantly improved many patients' sight.

However, the one-time therapy carries an eye-popping price tag: $850,000. The price has sparked renewed debate about supposedly predatory pricing in the drug industry.

With very few exceptions, drug prices aren't predatory -- or even arbitrary. They reflect the value of the innovation which came at colossal risk and expense inherent to pharmaceutical innovation. Attempts to impose price controls would stifle research and prevent the creation of medical miracles.

Creating these miracles is time-consuming and expensive. For instance, it took nearly six years and $400 million to develop Luxturna. And Luxturna is one of just a few success stories -- barely one in 10 drugs that enter human trials ever makes it to market.

Gene therapy is in its infancy, and so it's riskier to pursue this research than it is to pursue research for run-of-the-mill medications. But drug companies are diving in. They're developing therapies to treat high-need diseases like hemophilia and leukemia.

Because of this immense risk, drug makers have to be able to charge prices that provide a reasonable shot at recouping their huge expenses. Doing so is the only way to encourage researchers to investigate and develop brand new pharmaceuticals that target rare diseases, like Luxturna.

But if we don't give researchers the chance to recoup their investments, they might stop pursuing this new, risky research.

High prices don't last forever. Once a drug's patent expires, generic drug manufacturers can introduce cheap alternatives. About 90 percent of drugs dispensed in the United States are low-cost generics. Over the next five years, roughly $100 billion in brand name sales will start facing generic competition, forcing brand-name manufacturers to cut their prices to remain competitive.

Such competition also occurs when multiple companies introduce unique medicines to treat the same disease.

Consider Sovaldi, a breakthrough hepatitis C cure that cost $1,000 per pill when first introduced a few years ago. That price prompted a firestorm of condemnation. But it plummeted by half after competitor drugs hit the market -- and it's still falling.

Unfortunately, many politicians and pundits ignore how competition drives down prices over time. They instead fixate on the initial prices of drugs. And they've started calling for the government to regulate prices.

Such price controls would be hugely counterproductive. Price caps would shrink or eliminate companies' projected returns on drug development projects. So drug makers would stop investing in risky research. Many of the 7,000 medicines currently in development, over 500 of which are for rare diseases, would never reach pharmacy shelves -- or patients' medicine cabinets.

It'd be a tragedy to deprive patients of such transformative treatments.

Drug makers need to be able to sell breakthrough drugs at market prices to earn back their huge development costs and fund future research. Heavy-handed government interventions would drive away research capital and stomp out the next generation of new treatments.

Sandip Shah is the founder and president of Market Access Solutions, a global market access consultancy, where he develops strategies to optimize patient access to life-changing therapies.

More Resources


03/28/2024
My Friend Joe
I write now, in the worst pain and shock, with news of my friend Joe Lieberman's death just moments ago. I write because I know what his critics will be quick to write, what news reports have already re-circulated.

more info


03/28/2024
Why I'm Resigning From the Biden State Department
Since Hamas' attack on October 7, Israel has used American bombs in its war in Gaza, which has killed more than 32,000 people - 13,000 of them children - with countless others buried under the rubble, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. Israel is credibly accused of starving the 2 million people who remain, according to the UN special rapporteur on the right to food; a group of charity leaders warns that without adequate aid, hundreds of thousands more will soon likely join the dead.

more info


03/28/2024
Gaza: Truths Behind All the Lies
From civilian casualties, the use of disproportionate force, and international biases, the mainstream narrative of the Gaza conflict often obfuscates the truth behind lies.

more info


03/28/2024
Obama, Fearing Biden Loss to Trump, Is On Phone To Strategize
As the election approaches, President Joe Biden is making regular calls to former President Barack Obama to catch up on the race or to talk about family. But Obama is making calls of his own to Jeffrey Zients, the White House chief of staff, and to top aides at the Biden campaign to strategize and relay advice.

more info


03/28/2024
Biden's Surprise Campaign Boost Has Changed 2024 Race
A standard State of the Union speech doesn't move the political needle much. But Biden's latest gave a surprise boost to his campaign in both polls and fundraising.

more info


03/28/2024
Carville Is Right: 'Preachy Women' Ruining Biden's Chances
Political strategist James Carville just issued Democrats an explicit warning that President Biden's poor polling numbers indicate serious problems with the Democratic Party.

more info


03/28/2024
Forget Kennedy Dems. Here Comes the 2024 Kennedy Voter


more info


03/28/2024
What NBC's Firing of McDaniel Means


more info


03/28/2024
McDaniel Pledged Allegiance to Trump's Big Lie
After a Trump-backed purge of the RNC this month, promoting the 2020 stolen election lie has become a litmus test for loyalty

more info


03/28/2024
Hard Times for the Professional Never Trump Losers


more info


03/28/2024
SCOTUS Abortion Pill Ruling May Doom Trump This Nov
If the Supreme Court decided to restrict mifepristone, it would energize Democrats on an issue that has proved effective for them at the ballot box.

more info


03/28/2024
Republican 'War on Women' Is a Media Myth
There's no evidence Republicans want to ban birth control. On the contrary, the GOP has led on efforts to make it easier to get birth control over the counter.

more info


03/28/2024
Trump Is Not the Victim of ‘Lawfare.' He's a Crook.


more info


03/28/2024
Progressives Have Damaged Public Faith in Our Legal System


more info


03/28/2024
Things Are Great, But They're Miserable, Too


more info



Custom Search

More Politics Articles:

Related Articles

The Future of Transportation Isn't Just Self-Driving Cars. It's Public Transit.


Fiat Chrysler and BMW just announced plans to jointly develop self-driving cars. The move puts the automakers in competition with Google, Apple, and other car manufacturers that are also working on driverless vehicles. The question is when, not if, this is going to be commonplace.

Hating Tom Brady? Who Will Be Able To Argue?


Millions of Americans will be glued to the television Sunday to watch the 52nd Super Bowl. Millions of Americans will not be watching for various reasons. Some are not interested in football. Some will have something else better to do. Others are sick and tired of the National Football League. Others are disappointed in multi-million dollar players kneeling during the National Anthem.

Another Budget Deal Bites the Dust


Back in September I wrote about our "ethically challenged" democratic system. I said, "We are caught in a downward, self-destructive [debt] spiral."

US Faces Fiscal Armageddon, and We Propose a One-Half of One Percent Solution


"The U.S. economy made a spectacular comeback in 2017. But the country still faces the prospect of fiscal Armageddon if we don't cut spending and check the out-of-control National Debt," says Dan Weber, president of the Association of Mature American Citizens [AMAC].

Protect American Ideas Through Trade


We take for granted that the "ordinary" things we use every day are in fact extraordinary inventions and breakthroughs that took years of investment, work, and commitment to bring to life.

John Skipper, Blackmail in America - Who needs that?


here is no such thing as buying someone's silence. Silence really doesn't exist. If people want to tell the world it's easy to do. Tell one other person in the world and if the information is grimy enough it will be retold a thousand or a million times. Bad news travels fast. Sordid news for some reason always rises to the top. Regardless of how hard you try to cover it, you can't.

A New NAFTA Must Halt Intellectual Property Theft


As American negotiators push to conclude NAFTA renegotiations, they should prepare to demand stronger protection of intellectual property rights. Robust IP protections would prevent Canada, Mexico, and other trading partners from freeloading off American ingenuity -- particularly our medicines.

Marx's Apologists Should Be Red in the Face


May 5 marked the bicentennial of Karl Marx, who set the stage with his philosophy for the greatest ideological massacres in history. Or did he?

Sec. Zinke's Offshore Plan Is On Point


Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke wants to vastly expand offshore oil and gas production -- and politicians from coastal states are livid.

American Seniors Deserve Better than Canadian Health Care


Seven in ten Democrats want to establish a Canada-style single-payer system. Progressive lawmakers are even more gung-ho.

The Free Market Is Curing Blindness


The FDA recently approved a revolutionary drug that could restore sight to 2,000 nearly-blind Americans.

EPA is Right to Applaud Oil and Natural Gas Companies


The Environmental Protection Agency recently released a much-anticipated report on greenhouse gas emissions. It contains some great news. Between 2015 and 2016 -- the last year measured -- U.S. emissions dropped 1.9 percent.

Trump's Drug Pricing Speech Mostly Hit the Right Notes


President Trump delivered a major speech from the White House Rose Garden on prescription drug prices this spring. He announced several policies aimed at reducing the overall cost of pharmaceuticals and limiting patients' out-of-pocket expenses.

Summit Asymmetries


On June 3, 1961, barely into the fifth month of his presidency, John F. Kennedy met with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Kennedy requested the meeting in February as an "informal" opportunity to become better acquainted. Kennedy had risen rapidly through the American political hierarchy from the House of Representatives to the U.S. Senate and on to the presidency.

Envionmentalists are Lying About How Green Their Money Is


Some of America's most prominent environmentalist groups are secretly investing in oil and natural gas, even as they publicly push groups to divest from fossil fuels. That's the takeaway from an explosive new report from NBC.

Americans Fund Most of the World's Drug Research. Here's How Trump Can End That


President Trump recently released an ambitious, 44-page plan to drive down prescription drug prices. The blueprint relies, in part, on negotiating and enforcing trade deals to prevent other countries from freeloading off of American researchers.

Infant Health Deserves Careful Research, Not Partisan Bickering


Want to win a political argument? Accuse your opponent of hurting children.

"Environmentalism" Shouldn't be a Dirty Word for Republicans


Is there a more despised word among Republicans than "environmentalist"? For many GOP voters, the term conjures up a mental image of tree-hugging socialists hell-bent on regulating our country back to the Stone Age.

The Quite Coup of the Courts


There is a constitutional crisis in this country. One branch of government is undermining the rule of law.

No Matter How You Phrase It, Price Controls Are Bad For Patients


President Trump claims he's preparing an executive order on drug prices.