New Book: Unlocking Precision Medicine by Paul Howard and Peter Huber

“Our medical future will involve much of the customization and rapid-cycle learning that we see today in the rest of America’s high-tech economy—that is, if Washington doesn’t throttle it first with misguided price controls.”

NEW YORK, NY — As prescription drug price hikes continue to make headlines, the call for the government to intervene and fix prices is growing ever louder.   A new book by the Manhattan Institute’s Paul Howard and Peter Huber argues that while this frustration is understandable, price controls threaten innovation and fail to address the biggest barriers to delivering more effective and affordable medicines.

A smarter approach is needed that recognizes that medicines are the best tools we have for reducing the most devastating costs of all – death and disability from high cost, chronic illness like cancer and Alzheimer’s.

In Unlocking Precision Medicine (Encounter Books, 2016), Howard and Huber show that:

• Artificially lowering drug prices will hinder drug innovation, reducing number of medicines reaching patients, leaving them with fewer effective options, and hamstringing one of America’s most innovative industries. 
• High market prices encourage innovation by offsetting the high costs and massive uncertainty of bringing a new drug to market. Only 11-12% of new drugs make it through clinical trials.
• Lowering the costs and risks facing innovators through new precision medicine tools can enable more new drugs to reach patients, and compete on their ability to save and improve lives, as well as lower other costs – including hospital, ER, or nursing home admissions
• Competition on outcomes as well as cost can make medicines more affordable for patients, without reducing incentives to innovate

Howard and Huber propose reforms that will allow drug prices to fall naturally without impeding the search for new and better medicines. They suggest leveraging scientific and technological advances to modernize the FDA approval process, lower the cost of bringing a drug to market, and ensure that patients have access to the personalized treatments that will allow them to live longer and healthier lives.

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