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Feature|Videos|July 31, 2026

Patient Access, Innovation, and the Global Cost of MFN

Key Takeaways

  • Understand how patient advocacy groups are weighing MFN's affordability promise against other access issues like Medicaid community engagement requirements.
  • Learn why international reference pricing is viewed as a distortionary approach that could shift drug development leadership toward other countries.
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Julie Tierney, Kirsten Axelsen, and Maggie Farley examine how patient advocates, health economists, and communicators are each grappling with MFN's real-world impact.

Episodes in this series

In this segment, Julie Tierney of Leavitt Partners, Kirsten Axelsen, and Maggie Farley of RC Resolve, part of Real Chemistry examine MFN's toll from three different vantage points: patient advocacy, health economics, and communications.

Tierney shares that patient advocacy groups are still working out whether MFN represents a genuine win or simply another layer of uncertainty, noting that groups are currently just as focused on Medicaid community engagement requirements as an access issue. Axelsen argues that international reference pricing is a distortionary way to control U.S. prices, warning it could reduce the number of drugs launched globally and shift drug development leadership toward companies based in China, where clinical trials move faster. Farley closes by cautioning that the industry's innovation argument, while powerful, can come across as self-serving unless it's translated into terms that resonate with patients directly.

Patient engagement, policy, and communications teams will gain a fuller picture of how MFN is being interpreted across stakeholder groups — and how to talk about innovation in a way that lands with patients.