Trenton, January 17, 2025 ― Chrissy Buteas, President and Chief Executive Officer of the HealthCare Institute of New Jersey, released the following statement concerning the second round of government-imposed price controls on life-saving medicines announced by the Department of Health and Human Services.
“There are smart and efficient ways to lower health care costs with immediate savings for patients, but government price-setting is not one of them. These artificial price controls do not consider the extraordinarily expensive and risky efforts – most of which fail after spending billions of dollars – to cure diseases and keep people alive. This also does not consider other actors within the supply chain that drive up costs, such as pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), as repeatedly highlighted by the Federal Trade Commission as recently as this week. This latest round of Inflation Reduction Act price controls will further stifle the innovation necessary to research and discover new treatments for patients.
Buteas continued, “We remain committed to working with federal and state lawmakers on lowering health care costs for patients without jeopardizing the discovery of new, life-saving treatments and cures or threatening New Jersey jobs or our state’s innovation economy. This industry has cured hepatitis C, discovered the first life-altering treatment for sickle cell disease, developed vaccines against cervical cancer, launched the first-ever treatment to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s, and led the world out of the global COVID-19 pandemic. We will continue working with all stakeholders – including patient groups desperately awaiting the discovery of new treatments and cures – on policies that protect both the patient community and medical innovation.”