WASHINGTON — A federal judge in New Jersey on Monday dealt a blow to two drugmakers challenging the Biden administration’s new Medicare drug price negotiation authority, ruling that the program is constitutional.
The challenge, brought by Bristol Myers Squibb and Johnson & Johnson, argued that the drug price program created in the Inflation Reduction Act is an unconstitutional confiscation of their drugs by the government, a violation of their right to freedom of speech, and an unconstitutional condition to participate in the Medicare program.
The loss is a setback for the pharmaceutical industry’s strategy of getting split decisions in lower courts across the country to eventually get the attention of the Supreme Court.
