Photo by Wonderlane on Unsplash
On a nearly still and moonlit night last week, some 75 people formed a circle on Asilomar State Beach around a sand pit ringed by seaweed. Four dancers swayed around the pit to the sound...
Aggregated News
The White House unveiled the fruits of months of negotiations between the government and pharmaceutical companies: new, lower Medicare prices for 10 blockbuster drugs.
The discounts range from 79% for diabetes drug Januvia to 38% for blood cancer drug Imbruvica.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra played up the savings Wednesday evening.
In a press call ahead of the announcement, Becerra said if the negotiated prices were in effect in 2023, Medicare would have saved $6 billion and beneficiaries would have saved $1.5 billion in out-of-pocket costs, such as copays at the pharmacy counter.
“I had the privilege to work closely with our HHS team and oversee the negotiations,” which took nearly a year, Becerra said. “The negotiations were comprehensive. They were intense. It took both sides to reach a good deal.”
The program selected the first 10 medicines for negotiation last year based on several conditions laid out in the Inflation Reduction Act, which ended Medicare’s 20-year ban on negotiating drug prices. The drugs included blockbuster blood thinners, like Eliquis and Xarelto, as well as drugs for arthritis...