What can the United States learn from pharmaceutical spending controls in France ? By Marc Rodwin
Marc Rodwin, holder of the Chair in Integrated Cancer Research, joined with the IPC from september 2017 to july 2018, deliver a issue brief published by The Commonwealth Fund. In the brief, Marc Rodwin describes and assess France’s system of pharmaceutical price and spending controls to identify potentiel lessons for the US.

Marc Rodwin is professor of Law at Suffolk University Law School, and was IMéRA resident 2017-2018, holder of the Chair in Integrated Cancer Research, joined with the IPC. He was working onto the research project Reforming Pharmaceutical Policy & the Pharmaceutical Industry. He is the author of Conflicts of Interest and the Future of Medicine: The United States, France and Japan (Oxford, 2011); and Medicine, Money & Morals: Physicians’ Conflicts of Interest (Oxford, 1993).
Toplines : In France, retail drug spending declined 1.98 percent from 2008 to 2018, while in the United States it grew an average of 3.6 percent annually from 2008 to 2017. Actually, the French health system controls drug prices by determining maximum prices based on added therapeutic value and external reference pricing; employing negotiation to set prices and limit price increases; and capping total spending to a global budget. Marc Rodwin conclude his brief in writing that by employing approaches used in France, private and public payers in the U.S. could reduce drug spending without restricting access to new drugs.
Read the entire Issue Brief : https://www.commonwealthfund.org/sites/default/files/2019-11/Rodwin_pharma_cost_control_France_ib_v2.pdf
- All papers of Marc Rodwin in the IMéRA Blog
- Research project of Marc Rodwin in IMéRA : Reforming Pharmaceutical Policy & the Pharmaceutical Industry.