Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics

Value of Life Sciences Innovation

Research Program

Value of Life Sciences Innovation

Biomedical advances are at the front lines of transforming healthcare through innovations that benefit countless people. The Value of Life Sciences Innovation (VLSI) program exemplifies the Schaeffer Center’s focus on evidence-based analyses that encourage breakthroughs while developing pricing and reimbursement strategies to help ensure that patients receive the therapies they need.

Program Leadership

Karen Van Nuys, PhD

Executive Director, Value of Life Sciences Innovation, USC Schaeffer Center
Senior Scholar, USC Schaeffer Institute

Alice Chen, PhD

Senior Scholar, USC Schaeffer Institute
Executive Director, Value of Life Sciences Innovation
Vice Dean for Research
Associate Professor, USC Price School of Public Policy
2018-2019 RCMAR Scientist, USC Schaeffer Center

Dana Goldman, PhD

Founding Director, USC Schaeffer Institute for Public Policy & Government Service
University Professor of Public Policy, Pharmacy, and Economics
Special Advisor, USC Provost

Spotlight on PBMs View All

Testimony on Competition Issues in the Prescription Drug Supply Chain

Implementing reforms that increase transparency, align incentives and restore competition can ensure that PBMs fulfill their intended role: helping to make prescription drugs more affordable and accessible for all Americans.

Healthcare Markets

Experts: Neeraj Sood

Pharmacies Excluded from Preferred Networks Face Much Higher Risk of Closure

Medicare Beneficiaries Face Much Higher Drug Costs as Plans Quickly Shift to Coinsurance

How the Secrecy of Middlemen Inflates Drug Prices

Featured Perspective

Medicare Drug Price Negotiations Need Something New: A Floor

Adding a floor price mechanism would protect valuable innovation and effectively give future generations of patients a seat at the negotiating table.

Experts: Darius Lakdawalla

Read: Medicare Drug Price Negotiations Need Something New: A Floor

Latest Research View All

News

Leveraging Corporate Tax Rates, Rather Than R&D Credits or Tariffs, Is Key to Supporting U.S. Biomedical Innovation

As cuts to NIH funding and Trump’s drug pricing executive order risk innovation, a new Schaeffer Center white paper analyzes how tax policies influence medical breakthroughs.

Innovation

Featured Experts: Karen Mulligan, Drishti Baid, Darius Lakdawalla

White Paper

How Does Corporate Tax Policy Influence Innovation?

Perspective

Ensuring Most-Favored Nation Drug Pricing Doesn’t Sicken Us

Testimony

Testimony on IRA Implementation’s Threat to Medicine

In The News View All

Reuters

Padula provides insight on how rare disease therapies are influencing new drug pricing trends

Featured Experts: William Padula

STAT

Expanded coverage of GLP-1s is “probably the single most effective policy” for improving public health, Goldman says

Featured Experts: Dana Goldman

Healthcare Dive

Sood recommends key PBM reforms in testimony before U.S. Senate panel

Featured Experts: Neeraj Sood

CalMatters

California’s proposal to establish fiduciary duty for PBMs would be an important cost-saving reform, Joyce says

Featured Experts: Geoffrey Joyce

POLITICO

“Most Favored Nation” could incentivize drugmakers to pull products overseas, hurting patients worldwide, Lakdawalla warns

Featured Experts: Darius Lakdawalla

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