This is an excerpt from a story from State House News Service published on May 21, 2025:
Ed Coppinger, a former state representative who heads up government affairs at the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, said Wednesday there is “no evidence that Upper Payment Limits reduce what patients pay at the pharmacy counter, and the handful of states that have the authority to implement them have yet to save patients any money.”
“Instead, in addition to raising significant legal issues, [upper payment limits] introduce dangerous supply chain disruptions, force pharmacies to drop critical medicines, and destabilize the investment environment we rely on to discover and deliver future cures,” Coppinger said in a statement. “UPLs may sound like reform, but they’re bad for patients, bad for science, and bad for Massachusetts. Given all these issues, we do not understand why the Senate intends to enact such problematic legislation through a budget amendment without following through with the legislative process.”
Stami Turk, a spokesperson for national trade group PhRMA, argued that the Senate’s proposed payment limits “is a harmful approach for patients.”
“Including broad drug pricing measures in the Senate budget — without engaging all stakeholders or holding a public hearing — won’t solve the real issue of affordability,” Turk said in a statement. “In fact, it risks drug access across the state.”