Washington, DC (November 20, 2020) – Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath, president and CEO of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), issued the following statement after the Trump administration moved forward with its threat to impose foreign price controls on medicines covered under Medicare: “The president’s routine politicization of science has needlessly hurt our nation’s response to the pandemic. Now, in the waning days of his administration, the president is rushing to impose arbitrary foreign price controls on the very researchers trying to develop vaccines and treatments to end this public health crisis. And to add insult to injury, this is being done as retribution against America’s researchers because they refused to put the president’s political interests ahead of science and patient safety in their efforts to develop a vaccine for Covid-19.  “We have repeatedly warned that price controls will handicap future medical innovation and endanger our most vulnerable Americans. The president’s own economic team has echoed our concerns, warning that price controls will dramatically reduce investment in new cures and treatments. The impact will be particularly severe on smaller biotech companies, who are leaders in some of the most cutting-edge biomedical research. “Dumping this ill-considered, legally suspect, and operationally unworkable policy on the Biden administration will be a costly distraction as they take over the nation’s response to this pandemic. Republicans and Democrats must stand with science and those fighting to end this virus and other deadly diseases by rejecting this fatally flawed regulation.”  ###