Drug Pricing Principles

Treatment and biomedical prevention advances – and the innovative research and development behind them – have revolutionized our ability to end the HIV and hepatitis epidemics and have provided lifesaving interventions to millions of people worldwide. HIV treatment and biomedical prevention drugs, hepatitis C direct acting antivirals, and opioid reversal drugs are critical public health tools, and our ability to access them must be considered a public health imperative. Yet access has been inefficient, expensive, and profoundly inequitable. Federal, regional, and local efforts to end these epidemics serve as an important catalyst to approach drug pricing and access with the goal of achieving sustainable systems of treatment and prevention. The entire drug pricing and delivery system – including pharmaceutical manufacturers, public and private payers, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), and government entities – has a role to play in reducing drug prices and improving access.

These principles are based on NASTAD’s mission and commitment to ending the HIV, hepatitis, and overdose epidemics and to addressing the health disparities that have fueled disproportionate access to healthcare in the United States.