Medicare has began value negotiations for 15 medicines, together with the diabetes drug Ozempic.
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Mario Tama/Getty Pictures
As President Trump touts his personal government orders to decrease drug costs, the Medicare drug value negotiations begun throughout the Biden administration are persevering with behind the scenes.
Two firms – Novo Nordisk and Amgen – confirmed to NPR that they’d obtained opening value affords from the federal government, kicking off bargaining that would final via October. The Division of Well being and Human Companies didn’t reply to a request for touch upon the standing of negotiations.
Medicare is negotiating the costs of 15 medicine, together with Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic. The federal government has till Nov. 30 to announce the agreed-upon Medicare costs. The decrease costs would go into impact in January 2027.
“It is a practice that is type of shifting alongside the tracks within the background,” says Ben Rome, a doctor and well being coverage researcher at Harvard Medical College. “And it looks like the Trump administration has given the inexperienced mild to sort of proceed that course of.”
Medicare drug value negotiation continues to be comparatively new. Till the 2022 passage of the Inflation Discount Act, Medicare half D, which covers greater than 50 million seniors, did not have the authority to barter drug costs. That is the second spherical of annual bargaining.
“Except the Trump administration desires to type of completely disregard the directives of Congress, then this course of will proceed,” Rome says.
The primary batch of 10 medicine was negotiated final yr and introduced in August with value cuts starting from 79% for Kind 2 diabetes drug Januvia to 38% for most cancers drug Imbruvica. The decrease costs for these medicine are anticipated to take impact in January 2026.
Neither Novo Nordisk nor Amgen, whose psoriasis and arthritis drug Otezla is up for negotiation, would touch upon the bargaining course of apart from to verify that they’d obtained opening affords.
On Could 12, the Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Companies issued draft steerage for the third spherical of negotiations, which is slated to start in early 2026. Rome says this motion is a transparent signal “the Trump administration plans to proceed this program,” despite the fact that it started below the Biden administration.
President Trump has touted his personal drug value initiatives, together with an government order on most favored nation drug pricing, which might search to decrease U.S. drug costs and power different nations to pay extra for his or her medicine. Nevertheless, the small print of how this might work are unclear.
Mission 2025, a blueprint for altering the federal authorities by the conservative Heritage Basis that Trump has echoed in a lot of his actions, says Medicare drug value negotiation “needs to be repealed.” Till that may occur “an Administration that’s required to implement it should accomplish that in a method that’s prudent with its authority, minimizing the dangerous results of the legislation’s insurance policies and avoiding even worse unintended penalties,” it says.
