Restore a better balance to public-private funding of biomedical research

The pharmaceutical industry says that if the U.S. reduces the astronomical drug prices paid by U.S. consumers, lifesaving innovation will be devastated.

That’s not true. There are ways for the U.S. to reduce drug prices while maintaining and perhaps even accelerating its innovation engine.

In recent decades, the United States has largely privatized its biomedical research and development not by intention but by default. A Research!America analysis shows that private industry accounted for two-thirds of the $194 billion spent on biomedical R&D in the U.S. in 2018, when the analysis was completed, while spending by the federal government comprised just 22%, most of which came from the $37 billion funded by the National Institutes of Health.

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