Oct 3, 2015 1 min read

There’s no doubt that new medications are expensive, as per your Tuesday editorial, “Why do they raise drug prices? Because they can.”

However, imposing price restrictions on high-tech drugs would jeopardize continued medical innovation. Cutting drug prices by 40 to 50 percent would lead to 30 to 60 percent fewer early-stage research and development projects, according to a study published in the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Harming innovators ultimately hurts patients.

Kenneth Thorpe

Atlanta

Thorpe is the chairman of the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease.