Medicare may save $1.8B from four drugs in first year of price negotiations, research finds

A new pa­per pub­lished this week claims that in 2026, when Medicare ne­go­ti­a­tions for drug prices kick off, the min­i­mum dis­count stip­u­lat­ed by the In­fla­tion Re­duc­tion Act ex­ceeds 2020 re­bates for on­ly four of the 10 drugs to be ne­go­ti­at­ed.

On Sept. 1, CMS is ex­pect­ed to an­nounce those 10 drugs first sub­ject to gov­ern­ment price ne­go­ti­a­tions.

“These in­clude etan­er­cept (En­brel), which will be sub­ject to at least a 60% dis­count, up from an es­ti­mat­ed re­bate of 39.1%, and the can­cer drugs ibru­ti­nib (Im­bru­vi­ca), pal­bo­ci­clib (Ibrance), and en­za­lu­tamide (Xtan­di), all of which will be sub­ject to a min­i­mum dis­count of 25%, up from es­ti­mat­ed re­bates of 9%, 5.7%, and 15.0%, re­spec­tive­ly,” re­searchers from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, San Diego and Wash­ing­ton, DC’s West Health Pol­i­cy Cen­ter wrote in the Jour­nal of Man­aged Care & Spe­cial­ty Phar­ma­cy.

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