Following a two-week District Work Period, Congressional action on Speaker Pelosi’s drug pricing proposal will resume. Three Committees with jurisdiction over the bill’s wide-ranging provisions will need to consider the proposal: the House Committees on Energy and Commerce, Education and Labor, and the Ways and Means Committee. Following Committee review, the proposal is expected to move to the full House for consideration, perhaps as soon as the week of October 28. BioNJ continues working to educate our policymakers as to our serious concerns that the proposal would significantly impact both Patient access to tomorrow’s cures as well as the vitality of the State’s life sciences industry and future innovation. Stay tuned for further updates on final consideration of the drug pricing proposal.
Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released its preliminary score of H.R. 3. The initial CBO estimate shows that while the underlying legislation may reduce government spending on certain treatments, the $500 billion to $1 trillion loss in life sciences company revenue would result in the reduced availability of new treatments for American Patients. BioNJ continues to believe that the provisions of H.R. 3 are the wrong way to address drug pricing: focusing on government spending rather than Patient out-of-pocket costs.
