KEI and others working in the drug pricing space are frequently asked about measures that a new President or Congress can take to lower drug prices, in the relatively near term. The following is a list of such actions, including some that would require legislation and some that would not.
A comprehensive list of possible actions would be much longer, and this is not such a list. Our list does not include suggestions from several other groups working on drug pricing that deserve consideration, and there is nothing at this point on price spikes.
Some of the measures are immediately implementable, based on existing authorities already in law. However, in order to more fundamentally address the issues of access and affordability of drugs, legislation will be required. The most important legislative changes will be those that provide a more robust legal basis for compulsory licensing of patents to address concerns over pricing.
We may be revising this from time to time. The version below was revised on November 2, 2016.
As PDF file (here)