A Delicate Balance — Pharmaceutical Innovation and Access

Even with many new therapeutic options, the proportion of health care spending devoted to retail prescription medications remains about the same as it was in 1960. Relying on competitive markets to set drug prices and encourage innovation seems to be working. As an endocrinologist, a former dean at Harvard Medical School, and a one-time head of research and clinical investigation at a biopharmaceutical company, I've seen many encouraging advances in medicine, plenty of discouraging false starts, and myriad areas where answers remain unknown. But today, as chief medical officer and executive vice president of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), I am seeing a therapeutic golden age like no other in my four-plus decades in medicine. I believe ongoing biopharmaceutical advances hold great promise for us all, and they lie at the center of a national debate over the cost . . .