Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: The U.S. Medicare health plan said on November 25 that newly negotiated prices for 15 of its costliest drugs will save 36% on those medications compared with recent annual spending, or about $8.5 billion in net covered prescription costs.
The prices go into effect in 2027, including a monthly price of $274 for Novo Nordisk’s popular GLP-1 drug semaglutide, sold as Wegovy for weight loss and Ozempic for diabetes, reported Reuters. Medicare’s recent net was $428 a month, according to an analysis published in the Journal of Managed Care and Specialty Pharmacy. Medicare put the drug’s list price, before confidential rebates and discounts, at $959 a month. Based on such nondiscounted list prices, Medicare said savings on the 15 drugs ranged from 38% to 85%.
AstraZeneca’s leukemia drug Calquence, Boehringer’s lung treatment Ofev and Pfizer’s breast cancer drug Ibrance took the biggest hits from this round of Medicare negotiations, each slashed by over $4,000 from estimated net prices. The annual price negotiations were established under President Joe Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022. Previously, Medicare was barred by law from negotiating with drugmakers.
The projected 2027 savings of 36% is better than the 22% savings of net spending – according to an estimate from Goldman Sachs – that Medicare achieved with last year’s first round of price negotiations for 10 different drugs.
Additional drugs up for negotiation this year included GSK’s asthma and COPD inhaler Trelegy Ellipta, which will have a price of $175 versus its list price of $654. AbbVie’s irritable bowel syndrome medicine Linzess has a new price of $136, down from $539.
