Public Pharma Resources

Developed by the Partnership for Public Pharma, this resource guide serves as a repository to consolidate the vast body of scholarship, analysis, & writing on the potential for public options across the pharmaceutical value chain - from research & development to manufacturing to distribution.*

Co-convened by the Health and Political Economy Project at the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy, T1International, and the NYU Law Science, Health, and Information Clinic, the Partnership for Public Pharma is a group of scholars, advocates, & policymakers working to catalyze a coordinated effort to build public capacity across the pharma value chain so patients can reliably access essential medicines at affordable prices through accountable and innovative public institutions.

Partnership for Public Pharma members are underlined throughout this Resource Guide.

*This guide pulls resources from many sources, including initial public pharma tracking research from Dana Brown, Christopher Morten, Allison Hardt, and Ameet Sarpatwari and Public Pharma for Europe’s Knowledge Hub.

Articles & Papers

Blogs & Op-Eds

Books & Book Chapters

Fact Sheets, Policy Briefs, & Reports

Legislation

News Coverage

Podcasts

Public Body Reports, Agendas, & Materials

Toolkits

Videos

International Examples

Articles & Papers

Drug Dealing: Making Public Pharma Work | Sahil Agrawal, Melissa Barber, Amy Kapczynski & Trudel Pare
Washington University Law Review | Apr. 1, 2025

Formulating Public Pharma | Shweta Kumar
Cornell Law Review | Nov. 4, 2024

A Public Option for Clinical Trials? Lessons from Convalescent Plasma | Victor Roy, Joseph S. Ross, & Reshma Ramachandran
Cambridge University Press | May 31, 2024

The Political Economy of Market Power in Pharmaceuticals | Amy Kapczynski
Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law | Apr. 1, 2023

Who's Afraid of Section 1498? A Case for Government Patent Use in Pandemics and Other National Crisis | Charles Duan & Christopher J. Morten
Yale Journal of Law and Technology | Fall 2020

Public Sector Innovation and the Constraints of “Platform Thinking”: An Account of Johnson & Johnson’s Viral Vector Vaccines | Karim Sariahmed, Janice E. Graham, Matthew Herder & Christopher J. Morten | Social Science & Medicine | Oct. 1, 2025

Technology Transfer, Intellectual Property, and the Fight for the Soul of WHO | Melissa Barber | PLOS Global Public Health | Dec. 1, 2024

Medical Research without Patents: It’s Preferable, it’s Profitable, and it’s Practicable | Hans Radder & Joost Smiers | Accountability in Research | Mar. 7, 2024

The NIH-Moderna Vaccine: Public Science, Private Profit, and Lessons for the Future | Christopher J. Morten | Cambridge University Press | Mar. 4, 2024

Estimating Changes in Medicare Part D and Commercial Insurer Insulin Spending Amid Planned State-Led Biosimilar Insulin Production in California | Kelly E. Anderson, Andrew Xuan, Gerard F. Anderson, & Mariana P. Socal | JAMA Internal Medicine | May 8, 2023

Assessing—and Extending—California’s Insulin Manufacturing Initiative | Jacob S. Sherkow, Eli Y. Adashi, & I. Glenn Cohen | JAMA | Jan. 19, 2023
When States Step Up: California and the Case for State-Led Insulin Manufacturing | Mariana P. Socal, Vishaal Pegany, & Mark Ghaly | Annals of Internal Medicine | Nov. 15, 2022

§ 1498: A Guide to Government Patent Use, a Path to Licensing and Distributing Generic Drugs | Joseph Adamczyk, Adrienne Lewis, & Shivani Morrison (authors); Christopher Morten (editor) | Technology Law & Policy Clinic of New York University School of Law & PrEP4All | Jan. 2021

We Cannot Win the Access to Medicines Struggle Using the Same Thinking That Causes the Chronic Access Crisis | Gaëlle Krikorian & Els Torreele | Health and Human Rights | June 2021

Development of a National Public Pharmaceutical Research and Development Institute | Ameet Sarpatwari, Dana Brown, & Aaron S. Kesselheim | American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics | Apr. 28, 2020

From Discovery to Delivery: Public Sector Development of the rVSV-ZEBOV Ebola Vaccine | Matthew Herder, Janice E. Graham, & Richard Gold | Journal of Law and the Biosciences | Jan. 16, 2020

The Right to Medicines in an Age of Neoliberalism | Amy Kapczynski | Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development | Apr. 25, 2019

Order Without Intellectual Property Law : Open Science in Influenza | Amy Kapczynski | Cornell Law Review | 2017

Blogs & Op-Eds

N.Y.'s Secret Weapon to Lower Rx Prices | Dr. Dave Chokshi
New York Daily News | July 15, 2026

The Federal Government Should Drive Drug Development — Not Leave it to Big Pharma to Put Profits Over Public Health | Rep. Rashida Tlaib & Dana Brown
Detroit Metro Times | April 27, 2026

Prescription Drug Prices Are a Problem – But TrumpRx Is Not the Solution | Victor Roy & Mara Heneghan
US News | March 26, 2026

What Stands in the Way of Abundance in Healthcare? | Amy Kapczynski
The Law and Political Economy Project Blog | July 29, 2025

Public Pharma is the Best Solution to the Ongoing Problem of Drug Shortages | Dana Brown & Christopher Morten
STAT News | Aug. 9, 2023

The Affordability Case for Public Factories | Joel Dodge | Washington Monthly | May 18, 2026

The Insulin Crisis is Far from Over. Public Pharma Could be the Solution | Arden Parrish | Hartford Courant | Sept. 15, 2024 (open access link)

Michigan has a Chance to Learn from California’s Public Pharma Initiative | Quinn Nichols, Nicole Koonce, & Allison Hardt | Bridge Michigan | May 28, 2024

State Production Will Bring Down High Costs of Insulin | Dr. Mark Ghaly | CalMatters | Aug. 5, 2022

Supply-Side Economics Isn’t Just for Republicans Anymore | Peter Coy | The New York Times | Aug. 1, 2022

Healing a Sick System: From Big Pharma to Our Pharma | Dana Brown | Nonprofit Quarterly | Mar. 14, 2022

It’s Time for Public Pharma | Alexander Sammon | The American Prospect | July 25, 2022

To Invent Our Way Beyond COVID-19, We Need Open Science | Common Dreams | Christopher J. Morten | Common Dreams | Sept. 17, 2020

Four Steps to Transform the Pharmaceutical Industry and Survive the Pandemic | Dana Brown & Christopher J. Morten | In These Times | Sept. 10, 2020

We Must Take The Vaccine Industry Into Public Ownership To Ensure Its Products Are Available To All | Alex Lawson | Common Dreams | Sept. 10, 2020

"Break Glass in Case of Emergency": We Must Break Pharma Monopolies to Lower Drug Prices | Fran Quigley | Common Dreams | Sept. 2, 2020

It's Time to Take on Big Pharma and Reclaim Medicines for Public Health: We Need A Public Option in Pharmaceuticals | Dana Brown | Common Dreams | Aug. 26, 2020

Reclaim Public Medicine for Public Health | Fran Quigley, Dana Brown, Alex Lawson, & Christopher Morten | Common Dreams | Aug. 20, 2020

Could a Patent Get In Between You and a Covid-19 Test? Yes | Christopher Morten & Alex Moss | The Guardian | May 20, 2020

To Recover From COVID-19, America Needs a Vaccine. To get it, We Can't Rely on Corporations | Dana Brown | NBC News | May 7, 2020

The Public Science Behind the 'Merck' Ebola Vaccine | Matthew Herder, Janice E. Graham, & Richard Gold | STAT | Jan. 16, 2020

Removing the Profit From Our Pills: The Case for a Public Pharma System | Fran Quigley | Common Dreams | Sept. 18, 2019

The Case for a Public Option for the Drug Industry | Dana Brown & Isaiah J. Poole | The New Republic | Sept. 16, 2019

Insulin: A Case Study for Why We Need a Public Option in the Pharmaceutical Industry | Dana Brown & Elizabeth Pfiester | STAT News | Sept. 10, 2019

US Should be Producing the HIV Prevention Drug its Research Helped Create | Dana Brown | The Hill | May 14, 2019

Before Big Pharma Kills Us, Maybe Public Pharma Can Save Us | Dana Brown | The American Prospect | Aug. 27, 2018

We Need a Public Option for Prescription Drugs | Alex Lawson & Stephanie Taylor | The American Prospect | July 27, 2018

It’s Time for a Public Option in the Pharmaceutical Industry | Dana Brown & Thomas Hanna | In These Times | May 11, 2018

Books & Book Chapters

Pharma Monopoly: The Battle for the Future of Medicines | Tahir Amin & Rohit Malpani | May 2026

Capitalizing a Cure: How Finance Controls the Price and Value of Medicines | Victor Roy | Jan. 2023

The Entrepreneurial State and Public Options: Socializing Risks and Rewards | Mariana Mazzucato & Henry Lishi Li | Cambridge University Press | June 11, 2021 | Chapter 2 of Politics Policy and Public Options, edited by Ganesh Sitaraman & Anne Alstott

The Public Option — Harvard University Press | Ganesh Sitaraman & Anne L. Alstott | Harvard University Press | July 1, 2019

Fact Sheets, Policy Briefs, & Reports

Ensuring Affordability & Advancing Public Health with GLP-1s: Policy Guide for State Leaders | Mara Heneghan, Dr. Dave Chokshi, & Dr. Victor Roy
Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy | July 2026

AmericaRx: Manufacturing Affordable Drugs in the Public Interest | Dana Brown & Alejandro Molina
Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator & Groundwork Collaborative | June 2026

CityRx: A Blueprint for Public-Powered Pharmacies in New York City | Joel Dodge & Dana Brown
Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator | June 2026

Cutting Out the Middleman: A Public Option for Pharmacy Benefits | Alejandro Molina & Reed Showalter
Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator & Groundwork Collaborative | June 2026

Legislative Guide For Insulin For All
Public Citizen & T1International | May 2020

Public Pharma: What Is It and Why it's Important? | The People’s Health Movement | Apr. 5, 2025

Transformative Policies to Realise Universal Access to Medicines | Rossella De Falco | Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights | Dec. 2023

Deploying the Government Owned, Contractor Operated Model | PrEP4All, Public Citizen, & Partners in Health | Mar. 8, 2022

Overpatented, Overpriced: Curbing Patent Abuse: Tackling the Root of the Drug Pricing Crisis | The Initiative for Medicines, Access, and Knowledge (I-MAK) | Sept. 2022

Public Pharmaceuticals: A State-Based Solution to Sky-High Drug Costs| Dana Brown | The Democracy Collaborative | Oct. 2, 2020

Voters Overwhelmingly Support A Range Of Actions To Reduce The Cost Of Prescription Drugs | Sean McElwee, Monika Nayak, & John Ray | Data for Progress & Social Security Works | Sept. 2019

Four Steps Toward Reclaiming Public Medicine for Public Health | Alex Lawson, Christopher J. Morten, & Fran Quigley | The Democracy Collaborative | 2020

Medicine for All: The Case For A Public Option In The Pharmaceutical Industry | Dana Brown | The Democracy Collaborative | Sept. 2019

Increasing Public Power to Increase Competition: A Foundation for an Inclusive Economy | William Sandy Darity, Darrick Hamilton, & Rakeen Mabud | Roosevelt Institute | Apr. 29, 2019

Legislation

Federal

H.R. 7854 - Medicines for the People Act | Introduced in 2026 | Bill that would establish a public program for biomedical research and development with democratic governance and public transparency.

N.D.A.A. 2023 Section 871 | Passed in 2022 | Law that authorizes the Department of Defense to publicly manufacture insulin to distribute to the military and Tricare programs.

S. 187 - Pandemic Emergency Manufacturing Act | Introduced in 2021 | Bill that would authorize the U.S. government to produce and distribute essential medical products during a public health crisis.

H.R. 7348 - Affordable Drug Manufacturing Act | Introduced in 2018 | Bill that would establish an Office of Drug Manufacturing to authorize public manufacturing for generic drugs.

H.R. 5155 - Free Market Drug Act | Introduced in 2004 | Bill that would establish the National Institute for Biomedical Research and Development to accelerate biomedical innovation and increase the affordability and efficacy of drugs and pharmaceuticals on the market.

State

Connecticut H.B. 7192 | Passed in 2025 | Complex multi-part legislation that includes a provision (Sec. 19) empowering the Department of Administrative Services to “negotiate bulk prices for prescription drugs on behalf of” state agencies.

Maine S.P. 574 (L.D. 1729) | Resolved in 2022 | Legislative resolution that creates a commission to assess the viability of a state-led insulin production and distribution program.

California S.B. 838 | Passed in 2022 | Legislation that requires the California Health and Human Services agency to enter into at least one partnership to purchase, manufacture or distribute generic insulin and distribute at an affordable price.

Washington S.B. 5203 | Passed in 2021 | Legislation that authorizes the Washington Department of Health to enter into partnerships with other states, government organizations, and nonprofits to produce, distribute, and purchase generic drugs and insulin.

California S.B. 852 | Passed in 2020 | Legislation that authorized the creation of CalRx, which allows the state of California to partner with manufacturers to develop, produce, and distribute generic prescription drugs including insulin.

News Coverage

Public Pharma’s Biggest Barrier | Audrey Stienon
The American Prospect | Jan. 5, 2024

Insulin is Way Too Expensive. California Has a Solution: Make Its Own. | Dylan Scott
Vox | Feb. 7, 2023

California Is Single Handedly Trying to Solve All of America's Economic Problems. Next Up: Transforming the Pharmaceutical Market | Andrew Marquadt
Fortune | July 9, 2022

As Drug Prices Skyrocket, These States Are Considering Making Their Own Insulin | Lois M. Collins
Deseret News | May 28, 2022

Would We Already Have Had a COVID-19 Vaccine Under Socialism? | Vanessa A. Bee
In These Times | Apr. 20, 2020

Mamdani Meds? Think Tank Pitches City-Owned Pharmacies to Lower Drug Prices | Greg David | The City Reporter | June 15, 2026

CalRx to Offer Cheap Insulin, and Other Prescription Drugs Could Be Next | Mina Kim | KQED | Nov. 11, 2025

In Shot Across Big Pharma's Bow, California Will Sell Its Own Insulin | Rachel Bluth | Politico | Oct. 16, 2025

Public Pharma vs. Abusive Prices: The Case of the latest HIV-prevention drug | Alan Rossi Silva | Peoples Dispatch | Sept. 10, 2024

Will California’s Plan to Make Its Own Insulin Work? | Soumya Karlamangla | The New York Times | March 30, 2023

Moderna’s COVID Vaccine Price Hike Reveals Government’s Failure | Lily H. Meyersohn | The American Prospect | Jan. 24, 2023

California Aims to Make Its Own Insulin Brand to Lower Price | Adam Beam | AP News | July 29, 2022

California Wants to Make Cheap Insulin. Here’s How It Could Work | Emily Mullin | Wired | July 27, 2022

California’s Low-Cost Insulin Plans Receive $100m Manufacturing Boost | Urtė Fultinavičiūtė & Fiona Barry | Pharmaceutical Technology | July 15, 2022

California Aims to Slash Insulin Prices and Challenge Big Pharma. Can It Succeed? | Angela Hart | Los Angeles Times | June 6, 2022

Indy Explains: How Nevada's New Prescription Drug Savings Program Works | Da Yeon Eom | The Nevada Independent | Mar. 14, 2022

Nevada Joins a Little-Known, Ambitious State Consortium Dedicated to Better Drug Prices | Ed Silverman | STAT | Mar. 2, 2022

Prescription Prices Could Push Washington State into the Drug Business | Levi Pulkkinen | Cascade PBS | Mar. 4, 2021

Podcasts

We Can Do Better: How Public Pharma Can Fix Our Prescription Drug Crisis
Host Fran Quigley with guest Mara Heneghan | July 9, 2026

Fixing a Broken System: The Path to Public Pharma in New York
Event hosted by NYU Law’s Engelberg Center, NYU Law’s Science, Health, and Information Clinic, the Health and Political Economy Project at the New School’s Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy, the NY #insulin4all Chapter, and T1International | Sept. 25, 2025

Building Local Power: Keeping My Public Options Open
Hosts Luke Gannon & Reggie Rucker with guests Chris Noble and Allison Hardt | July 6, 2023

Public Body Reports, Agendas, & Materials

Federal

The Role of Pharmacy Benefit Managers in Prescription Drug Markets
Report from U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Staff | July 9, 2024

Public Production and Public Health
Written statement of Melissa Barber, Ph.D., to the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Personnel | April 30, 2024

California

Report to the Legislature Senate Bill 852 (Pan 2020) Health Care: Prescription Drugs (2019 – 2020) Health and Safety Code Section 127694(a)
California Health and Human Services Agency Dept. of Healthcare Access and Information | February 2025

Insulin Patient Advisory Council Charter
California Health and Human Services Agency Dept. of Healthcare Access and Information | September 2024

CalRx Status Update: Initial Progress Under the California Affordable Drug Manufacturing Act
California Health and Human Services Agency Dept. of Healthcare Access and Information | April 2023

CalRx currently publishes meeting agendas, slides, and notes here.

Maine

The Feasibility of the Production of Insulin in Maine
Maine Department of Health and Human Services | Feb. 17, 2023

Toolkits

Exploring a Public Option in Pharmacy Benefit Management: A Research and Advocacy “Toolkit” | Sarah Lamour, Rhea Sahai, Humphrey Shen (authors); Christopher J. Morten (editor)
NYU Law Science, Health & Information Clinic & T1International | Jan. 2026

PBM, Procurement, and Production: Public Pharma Strategies for State to Lower Insulin Prices | Kaila Alston, Jeannie Le, Nicole Koonce, & Zelly Rosa (authors); Christopher J. Morten & Allison Hardt (editors)
Columbia Law School Science, Health and Information Clinic & T1International | Apr. 2024

Public Pharmaceuticals State Policy Kit | Dana Brown & Thomas Latkowski
Democracy Policy Network | Dec. 2022

Videos

International Examples

Domestic Manufacturing Capacity for a COVID-19 Vaccine – Prevention is Better than Cure
Report of the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, House of Commons, Canada | June 2023

Immunization and States: The Politics of Making Vaccines | Edited by Stuart Blume & Baptiste Baylac-Paouly
Routledge | Nov. 19, 2021

Strategies for Drug Production and Procurement in a Context of Technological Dependency | Gabriela Costa Chaves, Elaine Lazzaroni Moraes, & Claudia Garcia Serpa Osorio-de-Castro
Cadernos de Saúde Pública (Reports in Public Health) | 2021

Pharmaceutical Policy in Countries with Developing Healthcare Systems | Edited by Zaheer-Ud-Din Babar
Adis Cham | April 4, 2017

Access to Medicines and Intellectual Property in Brazil: Reflections and Strategies of Civil Society | Gabriela Costa Chaves, Marcela Fogaça Vieira, & Renata Reis
International Journal on Human Rights | 2008