Suited up: The Department of Justice responded to Merck’s Medicare negotiation suit. It leaned into the argument that this is a negotiation. “Manufacturers that do not wish to make their drugs available at negotiated prices can avoid doing so by forgoing sales of the relevant drugs to Medicare beneficiaries— including by withdrawing from the Medicare…
Weight list: The rush for access to weight loss drugs is not just in the United States. 20,000 people were interested in Wegovy in Britain and the wait list (weight-list?) is long. Ozempic is in shortage there. Another story highlighted shortages for weight loss drugs in United Arab Emirates. Interestingly, each area in the UAE…
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is a sneaky piece of legislation. It sounds so promising with a cap on out-of-pocket (OOP) spending in Part D and really sticking it to Big Pharma. But does the legislation get us to the stated goal of lower drug prices and have outcomes (or consequences) that are worth the…
Yesterday the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the list of drugs that they have selected as part of the initial year of Medicare drug price negotiation under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). These drugs will be negotiated over the next year with implementation of the prices to begin in 2026. And there…