The Expanding, Interwoven Objectives of Pharmaceutical Policy
The ISPOR Monthly Policy Brief provides concise insights into emerging developments shaping the global health policy landscape. Each edition highlights timely issues relevant to the health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) community and beyond, examining how evolving policy decisions influence healthcare systems, evidence generation, innovation, and patient access.
Ana Amaris, MD, MPH, Director, Health Policy Initiatives, ISPOR
Overview: One of the signals highlighted in the July 2026 ISPOR policy brief was the growing convergence between pharmaceutical policy and broader national priorities. Rather than representing an isolated development, recent policy actions suggest this trend continues to accelerate across multiple regions. This August installment takes a closer look at how governments are expecting pharmaceutical policy to advance objectives that extend beyond healthcare, including economic competitiveness, industrial development, trade, innovation, and health security and consider what this evolution may mean for evidence generation and healthcare decision making.
Medicines as Strategic Assets
Historically, pharmaceutical policy has focused on 3 core objectives: improving patient access to medicines, ensuring affordability for health systems, and fostering continued innovation. While these priorities remain central, governments are increasingly asking pharmaceutical policy to contribute to a broader set of national goals. Across multiple regions, medicines are being viewed not only as essential healthcare interventions, but also as strategic assets that can strengthen economic competitiveness, industrial development, supply chain resilience, and health security.
Pharmaceutical Policy Beyond Healthcare
Recent developments demonstrate how pharmaceutical policy is becoming more closely integrated with broader national strategies.
In the United States, recent policy initiatives have further linked pharmaceutical pricing with domestic manufacturing, trade policy, research investment, and national security. The Administration’s pharmaceutical tariff framework, for example, connects tariff treatment to commitments on domestic manufacturing, research and development, and pricing agreements, highlighting how pharmaceutical policy is progressively being used to pursue multiple policy objectives simultaneously.
A similar perspective is emerging in the United Kingdom. The government’s updated Life Sciences Sector Plan: One Year On presents patient access, research and development, advanced manufacturing, workforce development, and investment as related components of a life sciences ecosystem rather than as independent policy priorities.
Across Europe, ongoing initiatives to strengthen biotechnology, modernize regulatory systems, and enhance the competitiveness of the life sciences sector similarly reflect a growing emphasis on aligning health innovation with long-term economic resilience and technological leadership.
Beyond Europe and North America, similar priorities are emerging in other regions. In Kenya, the recently launched Health Products and Technologies Local Manufacturing Strategy 2026–2030 illustrates how pharmaceutical manufacturing is now viewed as both a health priority and an economic one, supporting access to medicines while strengthening local production and health security. Developed in the context of shifting global financing and geopolitical dynamics, the strategy also reflects a broader emphasis on building greater domestic resilience and long-term sustainability.
Although regional priorities differ, the underlying direction is remarkably consistent: pharmaceutical policy is increasingly expected to advance broader national objectives alongside its traditional healthcare mission.
Implications for Evidence and Decision Making
This evolution raises an important question: If pharmaceutical policy is expected to achieve multiple objectives simultaneously, how should its success be evaluated?
Measures such as patient access, affordability, health outcomes, and budget impact remain fundamental. However, they may no longer capture the full range of outcomes policy makers seek to achieve. Increasingly, governments are also interested in understanding how pharmaceutical policies influence manufacturing capacity, research investment, innovation ecosystems, workforce development, supply chain resilience, and broader economic performance.
For the health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) community, this presents an opportunity to broaden the evidence base supporting policy decisions. As pharmaceutical policy becomes more interconnected with industrial, economic, and innovation strategies, evaluating its impact may require more multidisciplinary approaches while maintaining methodological rigor, transparency, and a continued focus on improving health outcomes.
Looking Ahead
The growing connection between pharmaceutical policy and industrial strategy, trade, innovation, and health security suggests that governments are looking beyond traditional healthcare objectives when designing pharmaceutical policies. As these expectations continue to evolve, the evidence used to inform healthcare decision making may also need to evolve.
As governments continue to broaden the objectives of pharmaceutical policy, understanding the trade-offs among access, affordability, innovation, competitiveness, and resilience will be critical. Supporting those discussions with rigorous, policy-relevant evidence will be essential to informed healthcare decision making.
