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BIO Alabama's Stance on HR3

17 May 2021 1:14 PM | Anonymous member

HR3 attempts to address some of the challenges facing healthcare costs by limiting drug prices. BIO AL's Executive Director sent the following letter to Alabama's congressional representatives and senators. 

I’m writing on behalf of BIO Alabama to express our concerns about HR3 and the impact it would have on innovation and on the future development of life-saving medical treatments. Reference pricing would have a negative impact on patients and on our bioscience industry in Alabama.

The timing of this proposal is particularly ironic considering what the past year has shown us about the value of innovation and a robust bioscience industry. We have all seen first-hand the benefits of having an industry that was positioned and ready to respond to a novel and deadly coronavirus. But the importance of this industry is no less vital to those diagnosed with diseases that have been causing deaths and disability for many years.

As our national partners at BIO have said of HR3:

“This proposal, as a de-facto price control measure, would handicap future medical innovation – including for future pandemics – and destroy hope for millions of patients living with diseases for which no cures or viable treatments currently exist. As a recent study made clear, patients would have had access to significantly fewer new medicines to treat rare diseases and cancer, as two examples, had reference pricing proposals been enacted over the last decade. Moreover, the proposal would have triggered hundreds of thousands of job losses across the country."

Like BIO at the national level, BIO Alabama is deeply concerned about this legislation. We remain committed to working with you on patient-centered reforms to improve access to medications and treatments without putting our industry — and more importantly, the next generation of cures — at risk.

As a scientist, I understand the tremendous resources required to create and safely introduce new treatments, diagnostics, and medical instruments to healthcare. In my role as Founder of The Written Science, I spent years working with early-stage innovators, fueled by their zeal and hope for better medicine in the future. I experienced the challenges of healthcare access and pricing abuse in my clinical career. The challenges facing healthcare are complex and multifaceted, but HR3 is not a satisfactory solution and will create more holes in patient treatment than it fills. 

If you have questions, please do not hesitate to call me.

- Rachel Lane PhD, RD

Connecting the Bioscience Ecosystem in Alabama

BIO Alabama
P.O. Box 583
Arab, AL 35016


administrator@bioalabama.com

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