PRI Files Amicus Brief in Major Supreme Court Case That Could Upend Future Medical Innovation Nationwide

SACRAMENTO, Calif., Jan. 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- California-based free market think tank the Pacific Research Institute announced today that it has filed an amicus curiae brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear two cases challenging the federal government's new prescription drug pricing program enacted under the Inflation Reduction Act.

The cases, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and Bristol Myers Squibb Co. v. Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, involve the federal government's authority to impose government-set prices on prescription drugs purchased through Medicare and Medicaid.

At issue is a provision of the Inflation Reduction Act that allows the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to force drug manufacturers to sell certain medicines at sharply reduced prices. Those who refuse face punitive taxes or exclusion from Medicare and Medicaid, programs that together account for nearly half of all prescription drug spending in the United States.

Click here to download a copy of PRI's amicus brief in the case

PRI's brief, authored by noted constitutional scholar and attorney Richard Epstein, along with Ben Flowers of the law firm Ashbrook Byrne Kresge Flowers LLC, argues that the federal drug pricing program violates core constitutional protections by coercing drug manufacturers into surrendering their products at prices far below fair market value.

Rather than engaging in genuine negotiation, the brief explains, the government uses its dominant position as the largest purchaser of prescription drugs to impose take-it-or-leave-it price controls that manufacturers cannot realistically refuse.

PRI's brief explains that companies would be given only the illusion of choice, as refusal triggers crushing penalties that make participation in the program unavoidable. The result, the brief argues, is not negotiation but confiscation by coercion.

The brief further warns that allowing the program to stand would undermine long-standing constitutional limits on government power and set a precedent allowing federal agencies to bypass the Takings Clause simply by labeling forced transfers as 'voluntary.'

Beyond its constitutional flaws, PRI's brief cautions that the program threatens future medical innovation by reducing the financial incentives that drive the development of new and life-saving treatments. Drug development is an expensive and high-risk process, and government-imposed price controls reduce the ability of companies to recover those investments.

Allowing the program to proceed, the brief concludes, would send a chilling signal to innovators across the pharmaceutical industry and ultimately limit patient access to future breakthroughs.

The Pacific Research Institute (www.pacificresearch.org) champions freedom, opportunity, and personal responsibility through free-market policy ideas. Follow PRI on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

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SOURCE Pacific Research Institute