California leads on addressing the escalating cost of prescription drugs and holding pharmaceutical companies accountable for their skyrocketing prices.

California Senate Bill 17 —

The state’s landmark drug price transparency bill passed in 2017 —provides transparency into pharma’s skyrocketing drug pricing tactics and helps hold pharmaceutical manufacturers to similar reporting standards as others in the health care industry. The pharmaceutical industry spent years stalling transparency legislation in the state legislature.  There’s more to be done, but this landmark law is paving the way for more sustainable, affordable prescription drug prices.

California Assembly Bill 824 –

intended to end the harmful “pay-for-delay” practices by pharmaceutical and generic drug manufacturers and lower prescription drug prices for California consumers by hundreds of millions of dollars a year, it was signed into law in 2019.  

Pay-for-delay agreements, also known as reverse payment settlements, occur when major brand-name pharmaceutical companies pay off generic manufacturers to delay entering their lower-priced generic versions of the drug into the market for a set period of time. Pay-for-delay agreements take money from patient pockets to unfairly increase drug company profits.  Bringing more generic drugs into the marketplace to ensure competition helps all Californians have access to more affordable health care.

California Health Plans

are providing a critical service to consumers by picking up the majority of the tab for the costliest medications. 

• Overall, health plans paid 92.4% of the cost of the 25 Most Costly Drugs, including generic, brand name, and speciality.
• DMHC-regulated health plans paid more than $9.6 billion for prescription drugs in 2019, an increase of almost $600 million from 2018.

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