Rubio Warns Inflation Act Threatens 'Biomedical Innovation'

Florida Senator Marco Rubio (R) started the week off by publishing an op-ed with Newsweek. The op-ed, titled Biden’s Cancer Research Reduction Act, goes after the Biden administration over its support of the Inflation Reduction Act. With the bill passing, Rubio warns that it could limit Cancer research in the country, which was otherwise thriving towards “biomedical innovation.”

Over the weekend, the Rubio team released a statement, criticizing his Democratic rival Rep. Val Demings (D) over voting in favor of the Inflation Reduction Act. While Democrats championed the legislation, Republicans argued that it would only place a heavier burden on the middle class by raising taxes, raising healthcare costs for 220 million Americans, and increasing the size of the IRS among other stakes.

Elizabeth Gregory, the communications director for the Rubio campaign, commented that “Val Demings once again put party politics over Floridians... signing off on more audits and tax increases for working class Floridians as families are struggling to get by,” adding that the Inflation Reduction Act “will do nothing to reduce costs of living, and Val Demings doesn’t seem to care.”

Rubio, in his op-ed, continues to chide the bill, claiming that it will negatively affect Cancer research.

In speaking about the bill removing incentives for further research, Senator Rubio writes that "Innovative medicines take about $2.6 billion over 10 to 15 years to complete. Pharmaceutical companies can only afford the trial and error of research and development (R&D) because the successes offset the price of the failures."

He concluded that "by empowering government bureaucrats to set artificial price caps on drugs, the Inflation Reduction Act will remove the incentive to produce innovative therapeutics for patients in dire need. Even as the legislation lowers routine costs for some, the University of Chicago estimates it will slash national biomedical R&D by $663 billion––almost 20 percent––over the next 17 years."