The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), as part of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), has announced that all ten pharmaceutical manufacturers taking part in the Medicare drug price negotiations have submitted counteroffers.
The announcement comes after the HHS sent initial offers on 1 February in an ongoing effort to lower drug prices in the US as part of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and negotiations will continue over the next several months.
First selected last August, the ten medicines subject to the first round of Medicare pricing negotiations included therapies for diabetes, heart failure, immunological disorders and cancer, as well as anticoagulants.
The medicines selected included Bristol Myers Squibb/Pfizer’s Eliquis (apixaban), Novartis’ Entresto (valsartan/sacubitril), AstraZeneca’s Farxiga (dapagliflozin), AbbVie/Johnson & Johnson’s Imbruvica (ibrutinib), Eli Lilly/Boehringer Ingelheim’s Jardiance (empagliflozin), and Johnson & Johnson’s Stelara (ustekinumab) and Xarelto (rivaroxaban).
According to the HHS, collectively, the drugs were responsible for costing Medicare up to $50bn a year between June 2022 and May 2023 and generated $3.4bn in out-of-pocket costs for patients in 2022.
The Biden-Harris Administration has confirmed that all ten of the selected drugs will continue to be included in drug price negotiations, with new prices set to be announced by 1 September 2024 and going into effect at the beginning of 2026.
CMS administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure commented: “Receiving counteroffers marks another negotiation milestone met in the continued implementation of the landmark IRA, which is already lowering drug prices for people with Medicare.”
President Biden wrote in a statement that he will address his “administration’s efforts to lower health care costs and how [to] continue to take on ‘big pharma’ to make prescription drugs more affordable for all Americans”.
Since expanding eligibility for full benefits, nearly 300,000 people with low and modest incomes have enrolled and begun benefiting from the IRA.
Additionally, the HHS office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation released an IRA-related fact sheet, which revealed that the IRA’s $35 cap on cost-sharing for each Medicare-covered insulin product would have benefited around 281,000 rural enrollees if put into effect in 2020.