US President Joe Biden speaks during an event on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, US, on Thursday, Dec. 14 2023.
Chris Kleponis | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The Biden administration on Wednesday said it’ll impose inflation penalties on 64 prescribed drugs for the third quarter of this 12 months, lowering costs for certain older Americans enrolled in Medicare.
President Joe Biden has made lowering U.S. drug prices a key pillar of his health-care agenda and reelection platform for 2024. A provision of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act requires drugmakers to pay rebates to Medicare, the federal health program for Americans over age 65, in the event that they hike the worth of a drugs faster than the speed of inflation.
It’s separate from one other provision under the law that permits Medicare to barter lower prescription drug prices with manufacturers. On average, Americans pay two to thrice more than patients in other developed nations for prescribed drugs, in accordance with the Biden administration.
Some patients pays a lower coinsurance rate for the 64 drugs covered under Wednesday’s announcement, which fall under Medicare Part B, for the period from July 1 to Sept. 30 “since each drug company raised prices faster than the speed of inflation,” in accordance with a release from the administration.
Some Medicare Part B patients may save as much as $4,593 per day in the event that they use those drugs through the quarter, the discharge added.
Greater than 750,000 Medicare patients use the drugs annually, in accordance with the discharge. The medications treat conditions comparable to cancer, certain infections and a bone disease called osteoporosis.
The list includes Bristol Myers Squibb’s Abecma, a cell therapy for multiple myeloma; and Pfizer’s targeted cancer treatment for certain lymphomas called Adectris. It also includes Astellas Pharma and Pfizer’s Padcev, a targeted cancer treatment for advanced bladder cancer.
The Biden administration said Padcev’s price has increased faster than inflation every quarter for the reason that Medicare inflation rebate program went into effect last 12 months.
“Without the Inflation Reduction Act, seniors were completely exposed to Big Pharma’s price hikes. Not anymore,” Neera Tanden, White House domestic policy advisor, said in the discharge.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services plans to send the primary invoices to drugmakers in 2025 for the rebates owed to this system.
In December, Biden released an inventory of 48 prescribed drugs that will be subject to inflation penalties through the first quarter of 2024.
