Pharmaceuticals
Can the FTC’s PBM Complaint Create a Competitive Pharmaceutical Marketplace?
Fiona Scott Morton reviews the merits of the Federal Trade Commission’s complaint against the three largest pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) for suppressing competition in pharmaceutical markets. Although the complaint’s alleged harms are narrow, it is a welcome start that promises to shed light on the PBM’s expansive anticompetitive practices and ultimately lower drug prices for Americans.
Antitrust Enforcement Is Not Enough to Address Anticompetitive Conduct in Pharmaceutical Markets. Market-Oriented Legal Reform is Needed.
Federal antitrust enforcement has been robust and effective in promoting prescription drug market competition and thereby enhancing consumer welfare. Antitrust enforcement in itself, however,...
Preventing Drug Shortages and Saving Lives: The Role of Quality and Reliability Standards
Prescription drug shortages have become more common in recent years, interrupting usual medical care and increasing patient risk and system costs, but they are...
Paid to Show the Drug Works: Why “Blind” Clinical Trials for New Drugs are Far Less Blind Than They Should Be
New research shows that physicians in industry-sponsored trials are more captured by pharmaceutical companies than physicians in unsponsored ones.
Economists love health care because it...
The Amazon of Health Care: How CVS Is Evolving From a Drug Store Chain into a Tech Platform
CVS is built on a dominant chain of drug stores, but it is now trying to turn itself into a "uniquely powerful platform" for...
The Rise of the Opioids: How Purdue Invented New Markets for OxyContin
Purdue's strategy was to market its opioids directly to patients via brochures, videos, advertisements, and the internet. It also provided information to doctors and...
“Short Sellers Don't Exist to Fix the Problems. They Exist to Shed Light on the Problems”
In an interview with ProMarket, Fahmi Quadir, the short seller whose bet against Valeant in 2015 helped expose the company's misdeeds, talks about short...
Editors’ Briefing: On Our Radar This Week (March 3-March 10)
This week in political economy.
ProPublica has created a searchable database of 2,475 political appointees by the Trump administration, the result of “a year...
The Secret Driver of US Health Care Costs: Politicians Wanting to Get Reelected
A pioneering new study provides a first-of-its-kind look into the outsized effect that lobbying and political maneuverings have on health care spending.
Americans spend significantly more...
Perverse Market Incentives Encourage High Prescription Drug Prices
Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) are the under-discussed market participants who manage prescription drug insurance for the vast majority of Americans. PBMs claim to be a lone...
