Editor’s Note: The following was testimony delivered by Nonresident Senior Scholar Ryan Long to the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on April 16, 2026. More information about the hearing can be found here.
Key Recommendations
- Support the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) elimination of switching study and comparative efficacy study requirements for biosimilars. Further streamline the approval process and interchangeable designation, in line with scientific evidence.
- Remove the structural barriers that force biosimilar manufacturers to inflate list prices
to gain formulary access. - Restructure Low Income Subsidy cost-sharing to create meaningful incentives for generic substitution—lowering generic copays to zero and modestly raising brand-name copays when generics are available—saving the Medicare program and taxpayers potentially billions of dollars
annually. - Support FDA’s over-the-counterswitch programs and the Additional Conditions for Nonprescription Use pathway, reducing unnecessary physician visits and lowering costs for patients.
- Reform the 340B program to eliminate the spread-based revenue mechanism that
incentivizes higher-priced drug utilization, health care consolidation, and suppressed
biosimilar adoption—replacing it with direct financial assistance targeted to entities that
serve low-income patients.
Full testimony is available here.
