The President of the United States announced that nine large pharmaceutical companies, including Merck, GSK, Novartis and Bristol Myers Squibb, have reached an agreement to reduce the prices of their medicines in the USA, bringing them to par with those charged in other developed countries.
US President Donald Trump announced Friday that nine pharmaceutical companies have agreed to reduce the cost of their medicines in the US.
Pharmaceutical companies Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim, Genentech, Gilead Sciences, GSK, Merck, Novartis e Sanofi will now control the Medicaid drug prices to match those charged in other developed countries.
As part of the agreement, new medicines produced by these companies will also be charged at the so-called “most favored nation” price nationwide for any newly released medicines, for everyone, including commercial and cash payment marketsas well as those of the Government Medicare and Medicaid.
Drug prices for U.S. patients may depend on several factors, including competition a treatment faces and insurance coverage.
Most people have coverage through work, the individual insurance market, or government programs like Medicaid and Medicare, which protects them from much of the cost.
Patients on Medicaid, the state- and federally-funded program for low-income people, already pay a token share of a few dollars on their prescriptions, but Lower prices could help state budgets that fund these programs.
Lower drug prices too will help patients who have no insurance coverage and little ability to negotiate better deals on what they pay.
But even those with high discounts, 50%found through the administration website, you can still leave patients paying hundreds of dollars a month for some prescriptions.
What do industry professionals say?
William Padulaprofessor of pharmaceutical and health economics at USC, said Medicaid already has the most favorable drug rates, which in some cases will be close to the price of “most favored nation”so it remains to be seen what other impacts this could have, such as more research and development.
“It can’t be bad. I don’t see many disadvantages, but it’s difficult to assess what the advantages will be,” said Padula.
And while it’s significant that Trump was able to bring Big Pharma to the table to negotiate lower prices, it will take several years to measure the effectiveness of this initiative in terms of more people getting more benefit from the medicines they need.
“It’s good for your stock and it’s good for your future” in research and development, Padula highlighted about the advantage for pharmaceutical companies.
Trump administration officials said drugmakers will also sell pharmacy-ready ones in plataforma TrumpRxwhich will be launched in January and will allow people buy medicines directly from manufacturers.
What do the companies involved say?
Companies like Merck, GSK e Bristol Myers Squibb also agreed to donate significant quantities of active pharmaceutical ingredients to a national reserve and to formulate and distribute these ingredients into medicines, such as antibiotics, emergency inhalers and anticoagulants, as necessary in an emergency.
A Bristol Myers Squibbbased in New Jersey, also announced that it will provide the Medicaid program with its prescription-strength anticoagulant free of charge to reduce the risk of blood clots and stroke.
Known as Eliquisis the company’s most prescribed medication, and is also one of the medications most used by Medicaid.
Padula argued that the donations, which cover some of the most critical medicines in the world, represent a significant step toward health equity and a recognition that drug manufacturers can seek profits in other areas of their operations.
Other major drug manufacturers, including Pfizer, AstraZeneca, EMD Serono, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lillyentered into similar agreements with the Trump administration earlier this year.
