September 01, 2023

White House Announces First 10 Drugs Up for Medicare Price Negotiation

On Tuesday, the Biden-Harris administration unveiled a list of the 10 prescription drugs that Medicare will negotiate lower prices for with drug corporations.

The list has several drugs that many seniors use, including Eliquis and Xarelto, which are used to treat blood clots, and Jardiance, Jenuvia, Farxiga, and Fiasp (along with Fiasp FlexTouch; Fiasp PenFill; NovoLog; NovoLog FlexPen; NovoLog PenFill), which are used to treat diabetes. Eliquis is the most widely used drug on the list, with 3.5 million people with Medicare Part D currently taking it. 282,000 of those users are in Florida and about 277,000 in California. Jardiance and Xarelto also have a large number of older users, with 1.6 million and 1.3 million people with Part D taking them respectively.

“For the first time, the price Medicare pays for ten of the most expensive prescription drugs will be determined at a negotiating table, not in a corporate boardroom,” said Alliance President Robert Roach, Jr. “This would not have happened without the leadership of President Biden and our grassroots members’ tireless activism.”

The negotiated prices for these drugs will not take effect until 2026, but pharmaceutical corporations are trying to roll them back in court. So far, eight lawsuits have been filed by drugmakers, including the makers of some of the drugs on the newly released list: Eliquis (Bristol Myers Squibb), Januvia (Merck), and Jardiance (Boehringer Ingelheim).