STAT

FEBRUARY 1, 2024

WASHINGTON  — The Biden administration is making its opening offers to pharmaceutical companies in its brand-new Medicare drug price negotiation program on Thursday, administration officials said. And that’s about all they said.

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STAT

MAY 6, 2024

The changing landscape of drug pricing policy in the U.S. Drug policy changes are being influenced by perceptions of the value of novel medicines relative to their budgetary impacts, with some believing that many medicines may not be worth their cost, creating an important role for health technology assessments (HTA).

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Drug Pricing 293

STAT

SEPTEMBER 26, 2024

Biden administration officials have abandoned their own proposal to require drug companies to disclose the prices and research costs of drugs that are driving up spending in state Medicaid programs.

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STAT

JUNE 12, 2024

This is Part 1 of “Behind the Counter,” an in-depth video series demystifying the complex world of patents and drug pricing. Prescription drug costs are remarkably higher in the United States than in other countries, so it’s no surprise that more than half of U.S.

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Drug Pricing 237

STAT

MARCH 1, 2024

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Delaware on Friday ruled against AstraZeneca in a case challenging the constitutionality of Medicare’s new drug price negotiation program. Colm Connolly, chief judge of the U.S. District Court of Delaware, ruled against the company on all its major arguments.

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Drug Pricing 226

STAT

SEPTEMBER 20, 2024

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court ruled that three organizations, including the brand drug lobby PhRMA, can challenge Medicare’s drug price negotiation program in a lower court based in Texas. Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…

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Drug Pricing 222

STAT

AUGUST 8, 2024

How will we know if the the government gets a good deal in the first round of drug pricing negotiations? ” STAT’s Washington Correspondent John Wilkerson joins us to discuss the first round of drug pricing negotiations under the Inflation Reduction Act, which will wrap up by September 1.

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STAT

AUGUST 15, 2024

Almost exactly two years ago, the Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law, allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices for the first time. Today, the agency announced how much it lowered the costs for 10 drugs in the first year of negotiation.   Sign up  to get our Morning Rounds newsletter in your inbox.

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Drug Pricing 205

STAT

JULY 15, 2024

Medicare’s new guidelines cover how it will conduct the drug price negotiations authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act. It will also deter companies from doing research on existing medicines to create improved versions that are more effective and have fewer side effects.

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STAT

JUNE 7, 2023

BOSTON — The drug industry has spent the past year speaking against new mechanisms that could limit how much governments or insurers pay for certain new medicines. Robert Califf, the Food and Drug Administration chief, walked on stage Wednesday and told a crowd of biotech leaders that drug costs needed fixing.

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Drug Pricing Drug Development 324

STAT

NOVEMBER 2, 2023

WASHINGTON — A key Senate panel announced it will consider more policies to regulate pharmacy middlemen and ensure patients aren’t paying more than insurers do for medications. The package crafted by Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) is slated to be marked up on Nov.

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STAT

OCTOBER 29, 2024

The historic Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 has fundamentally improved the affordability of and access to prescription drugs for millions of people with Medicare. The law laid out aggressive timelines for implementing the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program.

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Drug Pricing 202

STAT

SEPTEMBER 20, 2023

T wo months ago, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) moved a step closer to an idea he has championed for some time — awarding prizes, instead of patents, for inventing medicines.

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Drug Pricing 281

STAT

AUGUST 15, 2024

Are pharma companies still fearful of the Inflation Reduction Act? Will Lykos’ FDA rejection and recent publication retractions pull down the entire psychedelics industry? And what would you name a commercial psychotherapy treatment? We discuss all that and more on this week’s episode of “The Readout LOUD.”

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Drug Pricing 192

STAT

MARCH 20, 2024

WASHINGTON — Medicare will likely choose the obesity drug semaglutide for price negotiation “within the next few years,” according to a new analysis from nonpartisan congressional budget experts.

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PharmaVoice

AUGUST 9, 2024

Here’s what the leaders of the companies with the 10 drugs in the first wave of price negotiations with Medicare said about how the new prices will impact their portfolio.

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Drug Pricing 223

STAT

JANUARY 26, 2024

The decision by the executives came after a public pressure campaign by Sanders to get the two executives and Bristol Myers Squibb CEO Chris Boerner to testify about why prices for their drugs are higher in the United States than in other countries.

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Drug Pricing 248

STAT

JULY 5, 2024

WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled against Boehringer Ingelheim’s challenge to the new Medicare drug price negotiation program, handing the pharmaceutical industry its latest in a string of legal losses. The company had argued before the U.S.

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STAT

JANUARY 22, 2024

So Sachs began reading about the drug, Xtandi , and found the annual list price at the time was about $156,000, or $427 a day, for men with commercial health insurance. In the fall of 2020, Robert Sachs was prescribed a medication to treat prostate cancer that had metastasized into some of his bones.

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Drug Pricing 271

PharmaVoice

MAY 30, 2024

To lower drug prices, lawmakers are turning to the drug patent system to outlaw some common practices — but a former patent agency director says it’s the wrong way to go.

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Drug Pricing 278

PharmaVoice

OCTOBER 4, 2023

Judges have found fault with drug manufacturers’ First and Fifth Amendment arguments against the IRA’s drug pricing measures.

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Drug Pricing 279

STAT

JULY 22, 2024

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to another working week. We hope the weekend respite was relaxing and invigorating because that oh-so familiar routine of online meetings, phone calls, and deadlines has predictably returned. But what can you do? The world, such as it is, continues to spin.

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Drug Pricing 223

STAT

DECEMBER 5, 2023

At first blush, it sounds like the model popularized by Mark Cuban of Shark Tank fame, whose own drug program claims to save employers up to 60% compared with conventional arrangements.

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Drug Pricing 340

STAT

FEBRUARY 9, 2024

Also, Moderna’s RSV vaccine efficacy seems lackluster compared to competitors, and the Bernie Sanders drug pricing song-and-dance did not seem to faze pharma CEOs. Our podcast this week centers exclusively on a tantalizing subject: Artificial intelligence in biotech. Give it a listen. Read the rest…

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STAT

DECEMBER 12, 2024

Top of the morning to you, and a fine one it is. Clear blue skies and chilly breezes are wafting across the Pharmalot campus, where the official mascots are snoozing after foraging for their breakfast. This means we are free to focus on the matters at hand — rummaging through our to-do list and making cups of stimulation.

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STAT

MARCH 18, 2024

The biggest enticement that large pharmacy benefit managers offer to the employers that hire them is drug rebates — a steady stream of money sent back to their clients, a tangible symbol of the discounts that PBMs are able to wrangle out of pharmaceutical companies.

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STAT

APRIL 10, 2024

In addition, the notable price hike also highlights a question about the extent to which penalties that are assessed by Medicaid and Medicare — which are levied for raising drug prices above inflation — are sometimes considered to be a cost of doing business. Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…

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Drug Pricing 283

STAT

SEPTEMBER 17, 2024

filed a lawsuit on Tuesday demanding that a recent Federal Trade Commission report accusing industry middlemen of raising drug prices be vacated. Express Scripts, one of the largest pharmacy benefit managers in the U.S.,

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Independent Pharmacies Drug Pricing 290

STAT

SEPTEMBER 23, 2024

As the Hatch-Waxman Act approaches its 40th anniversary, it’s time to critically examine its legacy and what it actually gave us: the  highest drug prices in the world. One of the main objectives of the Hatch-Waxman Act was to bring more generic drugs into the market.

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Drug Pricing 283

STAT

JULY 29, 2024

Through the creation of the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company (MCCPDC), Cuban aims to reduce drug prices and also drug shortages. Mark Cuban, the wildly successful entrepreneur and NBA owner, has committed himself to solving these two problems. Read the rest…

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Drug Pricing 234

STAT

AUGUST 12, 2024

” A report from the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability issued on July 23, 2024, was almost as scathing, finding that PBMs “inflate prescription drug costs and interfere with patient care for their own financial benefit.” That view is wrong. Read the rest…

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Drug Pricing 259

STAT

SEPTEMBER 26, 2023

Extending patent protection doesn’t just stretch a drug’s profits — in some cases, doing so can lead to its most significant revenue period, according to a recent analysis published by the Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge, or I-MAK, a nonprofit advocating for drug pricing reforms.

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STAT

OCTOBER 17, 2024

Hello, and happy Thursday from Boston at the STAT Summit ! For those of you following along virtually, my co-author Sarah Owermohle is interviewing Atul Gawande, the assistant administrator of global health at USAID, this afternoon, and Bob Herman is interviewing former CMS administrator Don Berwick about the future of Medicare.

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Drug Pricing 159

STAT

AUGUST 16, 2024

  The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released the Maximum Fair Prices (MFPs) for the first 10 drugs subject to negotiation under the Inflation Reduction Act. This is an important moment in prescription drug pricing policy.

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STAT

AUGUST 8, 2024

This is Part 3 of “Behind the Counter,” an in-depth video series demystifying the complex world of patents and drug pricing. Discovering a new drug is a big win for a pharmaceutical company, but selling it for lots of money with no competition? The cherry on top. Read the rest…

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STAT

SEPTEMBER 10, 2024

This is Part 4 of “ Behind the Counter ,” an in-depth video series demystifying the complex world of patents and drug pricing. But in 1984, a little-known law put an end to that waiting period and paved the way for the large quantity of generic drugs available today.

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Drug Pricing 196

STAT

NOVEMBER 29, 2023

PBMs are companies that serve as the controversial middlemen of drug pricing negotiations, and of the four largest, two are owned by Cigna and Humana. A proposed transaction would almost certainly prompt a close review from antitrust enforcers at the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission.

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Drug Pricing 276