FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 17, 2025
PILMA Urges Congress to Address IRA’s “Pill Penalty” Following Executive Action
Bipartisan EPIC Act offers solution to protect patient access, pharmaceutical innovation, and skilled union construction jobs
The Pharmaceutical Industry Labor-Management Association (PILMA) welcomes renewed attention to the harmful impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act’s so-called “pill penalty,” highlighted in the April 15 Presidential Executive Order. The pill penalty threatens access to affordable medicines and discourages investment in small-molecule treatments—the medications that make up more than 90% of U.S. prescriptions and are critical to millions of Americans. It also jeopardizes the highly skilled union construction jobs that build and maintain the advanced facilities needed to manufacture and research new treatments.
At a time when we are on the cusp of major breakthroughs in medical innovation, public policy should encourage the development of life-saving treatments, not penalize the researchers, manufacturers, and skilled union workers who make them possible.
The Ensuring Pathways to Innovative Cures (EPIC) Act presents a bipartisan opportunity to fix the pill penalty and promote smart, balanced policy that supports innovation and strengthens the workforce behind it. We urge Congress to act.
PILMA remains committed to advancing policies that lower patients’ costs, hold middlemen accountable, and ensure the partnership between America’s biopharmaceutical industry and skilled labor continues to thrive.
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