New Video: Your Voice Is Your Power
In honor of National Patient Advocacy Day on Wednesday, P4AD released a new video, Your Voice Is Your Power, following patient advocates Kris Garcia, Sarah Wisniewski, and Amelia Schachter as they travel to Capitol Hill to share their experiences with high prescription drug costs directly with lawmakers. None of them set out to become advocates — their experiences struggling to access and afford the medicines they need compelled them to speak up. As Kris says in the video, “They might have all that money, but we have our stories.” Their experiences are a powerful reminder that while the pharmaceutical industry has enormous resources and influence, patients have the power to change policy by making their voices heard. Watch and share the full video here. — [P4AD]
Drug Prices Fall as IRA Reforms Take Hold
Prescription drug prices fell 0.8% in July and 3.1% over the past year — the steepest year-over-year decline since 1963. While that’s encouraging news, the CPI measures what pharmacies receive from insurers and consumers rather than what patients pay out of pocket, meaning millions of Americans are still facing unaffordable costs at the pharmacy counter. The Trump administration has credited TrumpRx and its most-favored-nation agreements for the decline, but the general consensus from drug pricing experts is that the evidence points elsewhere. The administration’s GLOBE and GUARD MFN models have not yet taken effect, and the impact of TrumpRx on the index remains unclear given the paucity of data. In terms of robust policy measures, this is the first year that lower prices negotiated under the Inflation Reduction Act are in effect for some of Medicare’s highest-spending drugs. Further, the law’s inflation rebates are designed to discourage excessive pharma price hikes, while growing generic and biosimilar competition is beginning to bring down prices for some blockbuster drugs. No single policy can explain the entire decline, but the data is a promising sign that reforms designed to rein in drug prices and increase competition are working. The answer now is to build on that progress — not weaken the policies helping deliver it. — [PBS, Endpoints News, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics]
Another Legal Win for Medicare Negotiation
The pharmaceutical industry suffered another legal defeat this week after the D.C. Circuit rejected Teva Pharmaceuticals’ core challenges to Medicare drug price negotiation. The court upheld CMS’s decision to treat Austedo and Austedo XR as a single drug for negotiation and rejected Teva’s constitutional claim that the program deprived the company of a protected property interest. One narrow issue involving when generic competition is sufficient to exclude a drug from negotiation was sent back to the lower court for consideration. P4AD filed an amicus brief in the case defending the program and bringing patient voices directly into the appeal. Coming just three months after the Supreme Court declined to hear six additional industry challenges, the decision adds to the overwhelming body of rulings rejecting Big Pharma’s years-long campaign to dismantle a program that is already lowering prices for patients. — [Bloomberg, Fierce Pharma, P4AD]
Big Pharma’s Banner Year Continues
According to Protect Our Care, ten of the top publicly traded drugmakers brought in nearly $300 billion in global revenue during the first half of 2026 — $24 billion more than during the same period last year — while returning $63 billion to shareholders through dividends and stock buybacks. Meanwhile, nearly 6 in 10 Americans say they are worried about being able to afford their prescription drugs. The contrast is stark: the pharmaceutical industry continues to generate enormous revenues while millions of patients ration medications, leave prescriptions unfilled, or sacrifice other necessities to afford them. Big Pharma has the ample resources to invest in research and develop the treatments patients are waiting for without charging Americans an average of four to eight times what they charge in other high-income nations for the very same brand-name drugs.