Click play to listen to this article.

As Coloradans face rising costs for gas, groceries and housing, a bill making its way through the state Legislature would limit the Colorado Prescription Drug Affordability Board’s ability to rein in drug prices.

Senate Bill 26-140 would bar the board from reviewing hundreds of commonly prescribed drugs initially developed to treat rare diseases.

Fort Collins resident and two-time childhood cancer survivor Danielle DuChateau relies on some of these medicines to treat ongoing chronic conditions. She said the measure would make it much harder for the affordability board to do its job.

"It’s really the only tool that we have to reduce medication costs," she said. "So for me personally and many others, it would be wonderful to continue to give the affordability board a chance to work."

Image

The affordability board, created in 2021, set its first upper payment limit for the rheumatoid arthritis drug Enbrel last year, a move projected to save Coloradans around $38 million a year. Proponents of the bill claim that price caps would limit access to life-saving medicines because drugmakers would stop doing business in Colorado. A similar measure introduced in 2024 did not clear the Senate.

Colorado’s proposal to exempt expensive, rare disease drugs, or “orphan” medicines, is part of a national strategy by drugmakers to make it impossible for state affordability boards to bring down costs, according to the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative.

DuChateau said some of the drugs she received years ago have been redeveloped to secure orphan designations from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

"Pharmaceutical companies would like to have drugs that have that status so that they can continue to have that higher income and less competition," she said.

More than half of Coloradans say they’re worried about being able to afford their medications, and nine in 10 support setting standard prices to bring down costs.

DuChateau has stopped filling some prescriptions so she can pay rent and other essentials. She said medicines are only life-saving if you can afford them.

"Consumers like myself are just leaving the drugs on the counter at the pharmacy," she said. "You shouldn’t have to choose between life-saving medication and your basic needs to just survive."