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In 2019, the Maryland state legislature, to much fanfare and despite a massive lobbying effort by the drug industry, passed a bill establishing a groundbreaking, first-in-the-nation means to try to tamp down drug prices: a Prescription Drug Price Affordability Board with power to limit what state and local facilities and health plans pay for medications.
Although six more states have since followed suit, the board has all but disappeared from the public’s radar — leaving some wondering what it’s been up to for the ensuing three years and when to expect tangible results.
The board has gotten off to a slow start — derailed by a 2020 gubernatorial veto — and faces the daunting task of setting up an independent government agency as well as developing the complex processes by which it carries out its work. The board is now on the precipice of releasing its first report outlining supply chain issues in the drug market as well as policy options and the first steps to address them.
“These kinds of things just take a long time if you do it the right way, so I think we’re on track,” said Andrew York, the board’s executive director. He notes that Gov. Larry Hogan’s veto “set us back a year or so, but everything else is moving as we would have expected.”
Most state attempts to regulate the drug industry have...
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