Install
The FDA and Big Pharma blog
Frances Kelsey, Thalidomide and the 1962 Law That Slowed Every New Drug Frances Kelsey was right to hold the line on thalidomide, but the 1962 law passed in her wake went far beyond safety, and its cost deserves an honest count. The Right to Try Law of 2018 and the Families Who Pushed It Through A dying patient should not need Washington's permission to try an unapproved drug, and families made that case state by state until Congress listened. How a New Drug Gets Through the FDA and Why the Trip Takes So Long The FDA's approval path is a chain of safety rules that also carries a cost few count: patients who wait while a useful drug sits in review. Pharmacy Benefit Managers, the Middlemen You Never Hired, Explained How rebates, formularies and spread pricing work, why a list price can rise while someone else pockets the gap, and why transparency beats a price board. Should America Stop Paying for the World's Medicines? Conservatives Split Two conservative answers to foreign drug price controls, importing their prices or pressing them through trade, and why the second is the better one. Price Controls on Medicines Today Mean Fewer New Medicines Tomorrow Government price setting for drugs buys a visible saving now and costs cures that are never invented, and the patent bargain explains why.