Medicare drug pricing negotiations: What comes next?

Last month, the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released the negotiated prices for the first 10 drugs subject to the drug negotiation provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act. The industry has been waiting with bated breath to see these prices, as they give the first real indication of how impactful this unprecedented legislation will be for pharma’s bottom line. But this latest release of information raises as many questions as it answers, and on today’s podcast host Jonah Comstock is joined by Alice Valder Curran, a partner at Hogan Lovells and a healthcare policy expert, for a broad ranging discussion of some of the next steps and consequences – intended or otherwise – of this legislation. They talk about the many challenges CMS is likely to face in operationalising these prices and how much of the savings is likely to find its way to patients when the dust settles. They also discuss the prices themselves, why they aren’t lower, and just how low they really are, contextually. Additionally, they discuss some of the downstream consequences still to come from the IRA, including possible effects on oncolytics and the generics market. For the pharma industry, the IRA drug pricing negotiation provision is shaping up to be one of the most consequential political stories of the decade. Tune in for a lively and in-depth discussion of what those consequences might look like.