New, innovative, and effective medicines developed here in Colorado and across the country are saving lives and vastly improving patient treatment.

Throughout our state, patients facing difficult diagnoses of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and many chronic diseases benefit daily from medical innovation. That is why we must raise an alarm about government price-setting proposals in Washington, D.C. that could stifle the development of new drugs patients count on, and cost Colorado thousands of jobs in the process.

A well-intentioned – but highly simplistic – proposal to reduce drug prices by expanding the federal government’s role in price setting is now on the radar screen. These efforts, in Congress and the Biden Administration, would expand provisions of the recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act before the scope and effect of those measures are studied or even implemented. These new additions would result in hundreds of new medicines being derailed before they ever have the chance to reach patients.

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There is a complicated, but necessary, aspect of the way medicines are priced that too many policy makers, chasing the next headline or talking point, don’t want to consider. For patients, and indeed the future of our entire health care system, the system must not only have high-quality medicines for doctors to prescribe today, but also be continually developing new therapies for the future.  To do that, there must be a return on investment to the companies that spend years, and hundreds of millions of dollars, to research, develop and bring new medicines to market.

This basic economic reality – reinvesting part of the return on investment in future medicines – is what patients across Colorado count on.

And this is what the price-setting advocates in Washington would derail.

Here’s how.

The Inflation Reduction Act gave the federal government the power to select certain drugs used by Medicare recipients and set prices for them. Though these government-set prices will not kick in for several years, the policies are already causing research companies to pull new treatments from clinical trials because they know that the expected federal price will never allow for a return on their investment.

Despite the reality that companies are already being forced to pull back on new medications, proposals in the Senate and from the Biden White House would slash in half the time between FDA approval and when drugs are subjected to federal price setting.

A new study shows devastating impacts for Colorado patients, the health care system and for high-quality jobs across our state if these new proposals are implemented.

The in-depth, state-by-state study by research firm Vital Transformation, found including medicines in the federal drug-pricing system after they have been on the market for just five years will result in 235 fewer new treatments and therapies brought to market in the next decade.

The reality is these drugs would help address unmet needs for patients facing cancer, rare diseases, new infectious diseases and others. It is unfair, and frankly cruel, to enact policies that will have a disproportionate impact on some of the most vulnerable patients here in Colorado and across the country.

These ill-considered price-setting proposals also have economic consequences in a state like Colorado that has a robust, vibrant and growing biotech industry.   The study predicts that Colorado stands to lose nearly 15,000 high-quality jobs statewide, including direct biopharmaceutical jobs and others that are supported by the economic activity innovation companies produce.

Without question, policy makers are right to focus on making prescription drugs more affordable, but it is the wrong policy choice to attempt to achieve price cuts by risking the health of Colorado patients and losing high-quality jobs in one of Colorado’s fastest growing economic sectors.

Accessibility and affordability of prescription drugs is a complex arena for lawmakers in Washington and at our State Capitol. We must avoid short-sighted, quick-fixes that seem appealing on the surface but can have profound, lasting unintended consequences for patients and our innovation economy. Our hope is our Congressional delegation will reject these new, fatally flawed federal proposals for government drug price setting.

Mark Spiecker is a biopharmaceutical company CEO based in Colorado and the past board chair of the Colorado Bioscience Association (CBSA).