Study: Price controls would reduce cancer R&D spending by 31%

A recently published report from the University of Chicago shows drug price controls would decrease spending on cancer drug R&D by almost 10 times the spending increase anticipated under President Joe Biden’s Cancer Moonshot.

According to the report, current public and private spending on cancer research and development (R&D) totals $56.8 billion, with the Cancer Moonshot promising to boost that funding by 3.4%, or $1.9 billion.

However, if the federal government starts controlling drug prices, R&D spending will be reduced by 31.8%, or $18.1 billion.

As a result, cancer patients would miss out on 9.5 times as many new drugs due to price controls as they gain from the Cancer Moonshot initiative, the report concludes.

A total of 49.2% of drugs in the FDA pipeline are cancer treatments, and the second-highest cause of death attracts more R&D spending than any other disease.

“Despite the great intent of the Cancer Moonshot, new evidence tells us the joint implementation of such price controls from Congress will raise cancer mortality substantially and stall out decades of progress to discover treatments for a devastating and personal disease,” writes study author Tomas J. Philipson in The Hill.

The analysis uses research quantifying how biopharmaceutical “market practices translate into a predictable positive relationship between realized revenues and R&D spending.”