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PORTAL generates evidence to advance safe, effective, and affordable medications.

Our Work

PORTAL is one of the nation’s leading independent academic research groups addressing the development, regulation, evidence-based use, and cost of medical products.

PORTAL is an interdisciplinary team focused on generating evidence to make people healthier and live longer by improving how prescription drugs and other therapeutics are developed, regulated, used, and reimbursed. We deliver rigorous, timely research and engage with stakeholders to advance evidence-based policy solutions.

PORTAL is a research group in the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics within the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

Innovation Incentives and Competition

Regulation and Clinical Evidence

Price, Value, and Access
Featured Article

List Price Reductions Among Brand-Name ICS-LABA Inhalers In 2024 Were Associated With Increased Generic Uptake

Han J, Wang SV, Kesselheim AS, Avorn J, Feldman WB | Health Affairs

Following the American Rescue Plan Act’s removal of the Medicaid rebate cap in January 2024, brand-name ICS-LABA manufacturers reduced list prices by 21-50%, and generic ICS-LABA use immediately increased by 23%, driven by gains in commercial plans and Medicare. The authors conclude that these list price reductions likely limited brand-name manufacturers’ ability to offer large rebates to pharmacy benefits managers (PBMs), disrupting financial incentives that had previously affected formulary design that suppressed generic uptake.

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The Latest From PORTAL

Talk bubble graphics representing commentary and opinion.

Closing the Evidence Gap for Drugs in Children — Measures to Strengthen the Pediatric Research Equity Act

Liu ITT, Bourgeois F - New England Journal of Medicine

  • Commentary & Opinion
| April 2026
  • Innovation Incentives and Competition
  • Regulation and Clinical Evidence
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Talk bubble graphics representing commentary and opinion.

Anticompetitive Mergers — Pharmaceutical Buyouts as a Strategy for Maintaining Market Dominance

Tu SS, King J - New England Journal of Medicine

  • Commentary & Opinion
| April 2026
  • Innovation Incentives and Competition
Pharmaceutical “killer acquisitions,” in which incumbent firms buy out smaller competitors to shelve or delay their products, pose a threat to competition and innovation that current antitrust frameworks under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act are poorly equipped to catch. The authors recommend coordinated legislative and regulatory reforms to better protect competition and patient interests, including lowering notification thresholds for concentrated industries, accounting for intangible assets like patents in merger valuations, and applying heightened scrutiny to acquisitions involving overlapping products.
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Talk bubble graphics representing commentary and opinion.

Skinny Labels at the Supreme Court—Generic Competition, Patent Inducement, and Affordable Medicines

Tu SS, Tessema FA, Kesselheim AS - JAMA

  • Commentary & Opinion
| April 2026
  • Innovation Incentives and Competition
  • Price, Value, and Access
The skinny label pathway, which allows generic manufacturers to enter the market by omitting patented indications from their labels, is under threat following Federal Circuit decisions in GlaxoSmithKline v. Teva and Amarin v. Hikma, which expanded induced infringement liability to include truthful, FDA-aligned statements and contributed to a sharp drop in skinny labeled generic entries. With Amarin now before the Supreme Court, the authors recommend ways the Court can clarify the skinny label safe harbor, warning that failure to do so risks undermining a cornerstone of the Hatch-Waxman Act and prolonging brand-name drug monopolies.
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Program On Regulation, Therapeutics, And Law (PORTAL)
Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics
Brigham and Women's Hospital • Harvard Medical School
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