Program On Regulation, Therapeutics, And Law

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

Most-Favoured-Nation Pricing for Prescription Drugs in US Medicare: A Cohort Study

Hwang TJ, Hediger S, Krishnan A, Cai CL, Kesselheim AS, Vokinger KN | Lancet

Across 195 brand-name drugs, the most-favored-nation payment models for Medicare Part B (GLOBE) and Part D (GUARD) were estimated to yield net savings of $5.2 billion (16.1%) and $6.4 billion (17.6%), respectively, though savings would fall by more than 70% if manufacturers with separate agreements with HHS were exempted. For about three-quarters of drugs, projected Medicare savings exceeded the drug’s total annual sales in the lowest-priced reference country, suggesting manufacturers may be incentivized to delay launches or take other steps to avoid setting low reference prices abroad.

Subscribe to the PORTAL Post

Get the latest research and updates from PORTAL delivered straight to your inbox in our monthly newsletter.

New to Prescription Drug Policy?

Join the more than 100,000 people who have enrolled in our free, online HarvardX course, Prescription Drug Regulation, Cost, and Access: Current Controversies in Context. Led by PORTAL faculty, this course explores the major issues affecting the regulatory approval and evidence-based use of prescription drugs.