As Unleash Prosperity research has previously shown, Americans enjoy the cheapest generic drugs in the world, and our drug pricing system is much better than most nations.

Drugs are the only thing in health care that always eventually get less expensive.

But biotech drugs, which are complex living organisms, are different.   We have “biosimilars,” which are the closest thing to generics for these drugs, but they are expensive.

Fortunately, UP senior fellow Tomas Philipson hails a breakthrough: the first FDA approval of a peptide, an inexpensive to manufacture, small molecule drug that can mimic the effects of expensive biotech drugs.

Philipson explained in the WSJ how this breakthrough can bend the curve down on drug prices:

About 90% of U.S. drug prescriptions in 2022 were for unbranded generics… But biologic medicines – the injectable large-molecule drugs that have transformed the treatment of illnesses such as cancer and autoimmune disease – tell a different story.

When the patents expire for biologic medicines, the “biosimilars” meant to drive down prices typically arrive at modest discounts…  

A new class of American-developed drugs, oral biomimetic engineered cyclic peptides, or eCPs, can in some cases replicate the therapeutic function of an injected biologic in pill form without replicating its complex structure…

The FDA approved last week a new eCP treatment – a cholesterol-reducing drug from Merck that replicates the function of existing large-molecule biologics while cutting prices dramatically. Next the FDA should build a clear regulatory path that treats clinical results, not structural mimicry, as the standard for approval in relevant eCP cases.