Study: Biden drug policy could cost North Dakota jobs

(The Center Square) – North Dakota could lose up to 303 jobs tied to the biopharmaceutical industry if a proposed Biden administration drug pricing policy goes through, according to a study.

First included in President Biden’s 2024 budget and then moved forward under the SMART Prices Act, the bill would authorize Medicare to set prices for specific drugs five years after FDA approval.

If passed, it would mean 235 fewer FDA approvals of new medicines, including those for cancer, neurological issues, and infectious diseases, according to the study released by We Work for Health and Vital Transformation, whose clients include GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson and Johnson and Pfizer.

It would also lead to job losses across the U.S., including 50 to 78 direct biopharmaceutical industry jobs in North Dakota and up to 225 biopharma-supported jobs in the state, the study found.

Nationwide job losses would be between 146,000 and 223,000 for direct biopharmaceutical industry jobs and as many as 1.1 million jobs.

The Biden Administration says the policies would lower health care costs.

“The Act will cap prescription drug costs for tens of thousands of North Dakota Medicare beneficiaries, reduce health insurance premiums for tens of thousands of North Dakotans by about $960 per year on average while expanding coverage to about 6,000 North Dakotans, and cap insulin co-payments for the thousands of North Dakota Medicare beneficiaries that use insulin,” the Biden Administration said.

However, the study found the potential for widespread job losses and a drop in the number of new medicines developed and approved.

“Had the drug pricing provisions of the SPA been in place prior to the development of today’s top-selling medicines, we estimate that 82 of the 121 therapies we identified as selected for price setting would likely have not been developed,” said the researchers.

They went on to say the proposed federal government-mandated drug pricing policies would mean a loss of therapies and innovation.

”Impacts will be felt most heavily in many areas of unmet need, including in rare disease, oncology, neurology, and infectious disease,” the researchers said.