Prescription Drug Launch Prices Continue Climbing: New Report
The median annual net launch price of drugs jumped 35% from 2022 to 2025, reaching a “historically high level.” That’s according to a new report from the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) this week, which found that the median net launch price for a new drug last year was nearly $257,000. A breakthrough treatment means little to a patient who can’t afford to afford it, and increasingly high launch prices can put new medicines permanently out of reach from day one. Medicare negotiation has begun to rein in the industry’s pricing power for certain expensive drugs that lack competition, but manufacturers still generally face no direct federal or legal constraints on the prices they set when new medicines come to market. With launch prices reaching historically high levels, policymakers must tackle this major driver of unaffordable drug prices. — [ICER, Inside Health Policy, Endpoints News, Axios, BioPharma Dive]
PhRMA’s Last Ditch Effort After Appeals Court Loss
After a unanimous three-judge panel in the Fifth Circuit Court rejected PhRMA’s challenge to Medicare negotiation this summer, the industry group is now asking the full court to rehear the case. The en banc petition is the latest effort to keep alive an industry legal campaign that has repeatedly come up short: courts have rejected challenges to Medicare negotiation at least 25 times, and the Supreme Court declined to hear six industry petitions already this year. Despite that mounting record of losses, PhRMA continues searching for new avenues to invalidate the program and preserve drugmakers’ pricing power. P4AD will continue defending Medicare negotiation against these challenges and fighting to protect the lower prices patients have won. — [PhRMA Petition, P4AD]
Maryland PDAB Pushes to Adopt Medicare Negotiated Prices
Last week, Maryland Governor Wes Moore publicly backed legislation that would allow the state’s Prescription Drug Affordability Board (PDAB) to set upper payment limits based on prices Medicare has already negotiated, rather than starting from scratch for each drug. The proposal would give Maryland a straightforward way to build on the success of Medicare’s negotiation program, extending the reach of federally negotiated prices beyond Medicare. If passed, the bill would apply to the first three rounds of Medicare-negotiated drugs, as well as any drugs negotiated in the future. As affordability boards face legal and political resistance in states like Colorado and Virginia, Maryland’s proposal offers a new path for states to leverage the progress already made at the federal level. — [Maryland Matters, WYPR, WBAL]
ICYMI: P4AD CEO Merith Basey joined NPR Tampa Bay to discuss the upcoming rule change around personal prescription drug importation, and ONNJ to discuss efforts to lower prescription drug prices nationally and in New Jersey. You can watch both segments below.