Issue Brief: The Impact of HR 5376 on Biopharmaceutical Innovation and Patient Health

This issue brief reviews the evidence-base to assess the impact of HR 5376 on drug innovation and patient health. A large academic literature estimates the effect of future drug revenues on R&D spending and finds that on average that a 1 percent reduction in revenue leads to a 1.5 percent reduction in R&D activity. We find that HR 5376 will reduce revenues by 12.0 percent through 2039 and therefore that the evidence base predicts that R&D spending will fall about 18.5 percent, amounting to $663 billion. We find that this cut in R&D activity leads to 135 fewer new drugs. This drop in new drugs is predicted to generate a loss of 331.5 million life years in the US, 31 times as large as the 10.7 million life years lost from COVID-19 in the US to date. These estimated effects on the number of new drugs brought to market are 27 times larger than projected by CBO, which finds only 5 drugs will be lost through 2039, equaling a 0.63 percent reduction. Click here to read the full paper.