April 2, 2018 – An Oregon transparency bill introduced in February was signed into law March 13 by Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D), requiring drug companies not only to report drug prices to the state annually, but also to report costs associated with developing and marketing their drugs.

“The Oregon bill (HB 4005) is the most recent state-level drug pricing transparency law that attempts to control the cost of prescription drugs and is quite similar to the California legislation that is the subject of a legal challenge,” according to a March 27 article in Policy and Medicine. “However, HB 4005 goes a step further than that California legislation and seems to require manufacturers to disclose confidential and completely sensitive information.”

Policy and Medicine reports that the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America released a statement that this bill “won’t help patients because they don’t address the real reason people are paying more for their medicine out-of-pocket at the pharmacy counter.” BIO also issued a statement that the bill “will have a chilling effect on an innovative industry and do nothing to empower patients or lower their prescription drug costs.”

In a Feb. 5 Coalition for Healthcare Communication article on the bill introduction, Coalition Executive Director John Kamp stated that “transparency is a loaded word when aimed at drug companies these days. States like Oregon use so-called transparency bills as a first step toward price and marketing controls.”

To read the full Policy and Medicine article, go to: https://bit.ly/2uCVoIG