The U.S. Chamber of Commerce seal is displayed during restoration on the headquarters in Washington, D.C.
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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday asked a federal judge in Ohio to dam Medicare’s latest powers to barter drug prices before Oct. 1.
The motion for a preliminary injunction is a big escalation within the pharmaceutical industry’s legal battle against Medicare and would halt the talks before they start this fall.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra will publish a listing of 10 high-cost drugs by Sept. 1 which might be chosen for the negotiations. Drugmakers then have to make a decision whether to sign agreements to take part in the talks by October.
The U.S. Chamber and native chambers of commerce in Dayton, Ohio and Michigan sued Medicare in federal court within the southern district of Ohio in June. They argued that the drug negotiations violate the First and Fifth Amendments of the U.S. Structure, in addition to the separation of powers.
The Chamber asked Judge Thomas Rose on Wednesday to dam the negotiations before they get under way because they violate the due process clause.
Drugmaker Abbvie, a member of the U.S. Chamber and the Dayton, Ohio area chamber, fears that its blood cancer drug Imbruvica shall be chosen for the negotiations this fall. Imbruvica generated $4.6 billion in revenue last yr, or about 8% of the corporate’s total sales.
The Chamber argued in its motion Wednesday that the HHS secretary has “free rein to set prices unilaterally” with no administrative or judicial review.
The Chamber said the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals established a precedent that when the federal government sets prices, it must provide procedural safeguards to make sure an organization receives an inexpensive rate and fair return on investment. This precedent stems from the 2001 case Michigan Bell Telephone Co. v. Engler, the Chamber’s lawyers said.
The Medicare drug price negotiations don’t provide these safeguards and impose price caps which might be well below a drug’s market value, the chamber’s lawyers said.
Abbvie executive Michael Staff, in a declaration to the court Wednesday, said the drugmaker will suffer acute, concrete and irreparable harm if the corporate has to sign an agreement on Oct. 1 to take part in the negotiations.
Corporations have to start out submitting information to the HHS secretary on Oct. 2. Staff said this includes proprietary information and trade secrets reminiscent of R&D costs, market data and value of production.
Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb, and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America have also sued Medicare over the drug price negotiations in multiple federal courts scattered throughout the U.S.
HHS and the White House have vowed to defend this system in court, arguing that there’s nothing within the Structure that forestalls Medicare from negotiating lower drug prices for seniors.
