The extent of the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation program’s ability was unveiled on Thursday after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published the final maximum fair prices they agreed on with drugmakers and figures suggest success.
The six-negotiation process came to close on Aug. 1 and the federal government has been eager to share the results.
Discounts range from 38 to 79 percent, but these are based on the list prices that don’t include negotiated discounts and rebates. As CMS does not disclose the net price that is pays for drugs, it’s difficult to gauge just how much in actual out of pocket savings were achieved.
CMS Deputy Administrator Meena Seshamani told The Hill that negotiations yielded “a better deal today with these prices, above and beyond what rebates and discounts already exist in the Medicare Part D program.”
According to Stacy Sanders, chief competition officer for the Department of Health and Human Services, each negotiation was drug-specific.
“So for each drug, there was a negotiation specific to that drug, specific to its clinical benefit and the other factors that Congress required us to consider as part of the negotiations,” Sanders said. “In every case, the department has delivered real savings, and that is demonstrated in the range of savings that we have secured off of list price that will translate into out of pocket savings for people with Medicare.”
Here are the maximum fair prices reached through the first round of Medicare negotiation:
Januvia
Negotiated price: $113.00
List price: $527.00
Discount: 79 percent
NovoLog
Negotiated price: $119.00
List price: $495.00
Discount: 76 percent
Farxiga
Negotiated price: $178.50
List price: $556.00
Discount: 68 percent
Enbrel
Negotiated price: $2,355.00
List price: $7,106.00
Discount: 67 percent
Jardiance
Negotiated price: $197.00
List price: $573.00
Discount: 66 percent
Stelara
Negotiated price: $4,695.00
List price: $13,836.00
Discount: 66 percent
Xarelto
Negotiated price: $197.00
List price: $517.00
Discount: 62 percent
Eliquis
Negotiated price: $231.00
List price: $521.00
Discount: 56 percent
Entresto
Negotiated price: $295.00
List price: $628.00
Discount: 53 percent
Imbruvica
Negotiated price: $9,319.00
List price: $14,934.00
Discount: 38 percent
