Making A Social Contract That’s Enforceable

As the debate over drug pricing intensifies, biotech investor Peter Kolchinsky is weighing in with a proposed approach to balance access to medicines with the incentive for companies to invest in the development of innovative new therapies. In his new book The Great American Drug Deal, Kolchinsky makes the case for an approach to drug pricing that would ensure that the timely movement of innovative drugs to generic versions while also suggesting mechanisms for cutting the price of therapeutics after patents and exclusivity periods expire when competition fails to arise. We spoke to Kolchinsky about The Great American Drug Deal, his notion of a biotech social contract, and why it’s critical that the industry think differently than it has in the past about approaches to reform drug pricing.