Affordability: Too often patients experience the unfortunate and unfair choice between purchasing the medications they need to be well and paying for other necessities. Patients should never be presented with such a choice – especially today with so many people across the U.S. experiencing significant health and economic hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Measures must be taken to improve prescription drug affordability for patients and taxpayers alike, especially while the nation continues to battle the COVID-19 pandemic and everyone across the U.S. will need access to acceptably-priced and affordable virus countermeasures.

Transparency: Patients deserve open and honest drug pricing – clear and transparent information about the true costs of treatment, how manufacturers set prices and the actual cost of bringing drugs to market, particularly for high-cost drugs. Improving pricing transparency will enable patients to become actively involved in their healthcare decision-making and put pressure on Big Pharma to lower the prices of their excessively costly drugs.

Competition: Pharmaceutical companies today abuse the patent system to prevent more affordable drugs from disrupting their monopolies over the drug marketplace. Bringing more competition to the prescription drug market will give consumers more choices and more control – resulting in lower prices and improved access.

Value: Patients deserve reliable information regarding whether a drug’s “therapeutic outcome” – or its health benefit – is in line with its price. This information is critical to moving America’s prescription drug market toward a system that empowers doctors and patients to choose medications based on the value they provide – not the “value” set by drug manufacturers.