International reference pricing (IRP) for drugs is under consideration in the U.S. as health care experts are discussing an International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) meeting to be held annually.
This year, it would be a Virtual ISPOR 2020, according to AJMC.
While IRP decreases the price of high drugs, it can also prevent new drugs from companies that would offer them at a lower price, according to AJMC. This means there is less money to invest in new drugs, Lou Garrison, PhD, with the Comparative Health Outcomes, Policy and Economics Institute Department of Pharmacy at the University of Washington in Seattle, told AJMC.
Legislation for IRP is being proposed and it would help cap prices to make drugs for affordable, according to AJMC. In the U.S., drugs cost three times the amount they do in Canada and many other European countries.
"Allowing IRP would elicit a greater supply of new drugs in the long term, but results in higher prices and, thus, worse access in the short term,” Garrison told AJMC. “But if new medicines aren’t invented, no one can access them in the long term."
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