Wrapping up the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference

This year at J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference was one to remember. 

The focus of so many panels and conversations held in San Francisco was how the new Congress and administration may impact the industry. For instance, at Endpoints at #JPM25, I joined a panel on how health care policy is shifting from the last administration to the new one. At Incubate Coalition’s event, our COO Lori Reilly talked about how policies in Washington can impact investment in innovative treatments and cures. And at Fierce JPM Week, our Chief Public Affairs Officer & Head of Strategic Initiatives Robby Zirkelbach discussed how the Inflation Reduction Act, PBMs and 340B are impacting patients and innovation.

Here are three things we stressed during these conversations:  

• Our industry is part of the solution to making America healthier. Tackling the growing epidemic of chronic disease requires prevention and earlier intervention, a focus on health and wellness, and new treatments and cures. So many people in our industry wake up every day focused on preventing and mitigating chronic disease, and we’re ready to help achieve this goal.
• Congress needs to fix the pill penalty in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). It undermines U.S. leadership in medical innovation by discouraging research and development in medicines necessary to fight many chronic diseases. Right now, the federal government can set prices for small molecule treatments years earlier than other medicines, discouraging R&D into medicines that are not only easier for patients to take, but also usually more affordable.
• We want to work with policymakers to address insurer, PBM and hospital abuses that drive up costs and block patients from accessing the care they need to get and stay healthy. That means policymakers need to put an end to PBM practices like tying fees to the list price of a medicine and withholding savings from patients at the pharmacy counter. And they need to hold hospitals and clinics accountable for abusing the 340B hospital markup program to boost their profits while increasing costs on patients, employers and taxpayers.

As I return home from the conference, I look forward to what this year has in store, both in terms of the scientific advances we’ll see and the policies that get enacted that together can improve patients’ lives.