University of Chicago professor Tomas Philipson is preparing a study for us at the CTUP and has a piece in Newsweek on the impact of the Manchin bill on drug innovation. A few of the chilling findings:
Over the next 17 years, the bill would reduce drug industry research and development by about $663 billion, resulting in 135 fewer new medicines. This will amount to a loss of 330 million life-years, about 30 times the loss from COVID-19 so far. The associated loss in value is more than $66 trillion, with longevity conservatively valued at half the amount used by agencies such as FDA and EPA. No economic gains have more value than living longer to see those gains.
Losses could include cures for Alzheimer’s, cancer, and so much more. Indeed, nearly 50% of today’s FDA pipeline is for new cancer medicines—and the bill would cut the amount spent on cancer research by more than nine times as much as Biden’s “Cancer Moonshot” initiative raises it.