America leads on innovation, and Europe on regulation, or so the conventional wisdom goes. But recently, the US seems to have taken the lead in the latter, particularly in politically powerful industries like technology, pharma and finance.
Just last week, Eli Lilly, the producer of popular insulin medications Humalog and Humulin, pledged to reduce its insulin list prices by 70 per cent in an effort to make the medicine more affordable. The move was seen as a direct response to Joe Biden’s policy pressure on Big Pharma. In June 2022, the Federal Trade Commission issued a unanimous policy statement criticising pharmaceutical middlemen, known as pharmacy benefit managers, for taking illegal bribes and rebates to keep prices high.
Some competition experts say this supports the theory that even the threat of tough antitrust action can be enough to nudge companies in the right direction. And the threats from American regulators seemed far greater than those from their European peers at a high-profile competition conference in Brussels last week, which brought together policymakers, economists, lawyers and politicians from both sides of the Atlantic.