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# Docs See Ways to Restrict Drug Costs
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/docs-see-ways-to-restrict-drug-costs/
- Published: 2016-04-07T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T20:53:19.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: Drugs, #legacy-id-D5135305

> An American College of Physicians (ACP) [position paper](http://www.cohealthcom.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/AIME201607050-M152768.pdf?ref=fdaweb.com) recommends forcing drug companies to disclose their actual product and research-and-development costs and submit to price negotiation among ways to reduce the highest national spending on drugs in the advanced world. The U.S. is the only country in the 34-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, ACP says, that lacks some degree of government oversight or regulation of prescription drug pricing. And among the 13 countries considered to be high-income, the U.S. spends more on pharmaceuticals than the other 12.  
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> In addition, the paper says, the U.S. tends to introduce new drugs to the market faster than other countries and use them more, influencing increases in prescription drug spending.  
>  
> “After some years of slowing growth in prescription drug spending,” ACP says, “high-cost entrants to the market and increases in the price of prescription drugs already on the market have resulted in increased growth rates, and analysts expect that the United States will see the largest increase in per capita spending among the developed markets between 2013 and 2018\. Various components have been mentioned as contributing to the rise of prescription drug costs, including lack of pricing transparency, regulatory barriers, a shortage of comparative clinical data between the cost-effectiveness and value of a drug, health plan benefit structures, and a patent system with loopholes that allows companies to extend monopolies on brand-name drugs while lower-cost alternatives are shut out of the market. All of these issues must be dealt with to achieve meaningful change.”  
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> Recommendations listed in the position paper include:  
> requiring drug companies to disclose actual material and production costs to regulators and also disclose research and development costs contributing to a drug’s pricing, including drugs that were previously licensed by another company; instituting rigorous price transparency standards for drugs developed from taxpayer-funded basic research; allowing greater flexibility by Medicare and other publicly-funded health programs to negotiate volume discounts on prescription drug prices and pursue prescription drug bulk purchasing agreements; considering legislative or regulatory measures to develop a process to reimport certain drugs manufactured in the U.S., provided that the safety of the source of the reimported drug can be reasonably assured by regulators; establishing policies or programs that may increase competition for brand-name and generic sole-source drugs; not extending market or data exclusivity periods beyond those currently granted to small-molecule, generic, orphan, and biologic drugs; and researching novel approaches to encourage value-based decision-making, including options such as value frameworks, bundled payments, indication-specific pricing, and evidence-based benefit designs.  
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> “Through collaboration and innovation,” ACP concludes, “stakeholders have the ability to effect change by supporting transparency in how drugs are priced, developing and piloting novel approaches to evaluate and pay for drugs through evidence-based practices that reward achievements in the medical field, assuring access to need prescription medication by not placing disproportionate economic burden on patients, encouraging informed patient participation in their healthcare decision-making, and ensuring a truly competitive marketplace.”