AstraZeneca has asked the Supreme Court to hear its case challenging the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program created through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
According to the Supreme Court’s docket, AstraZeneca’s petition was filed on Sept. 19. The company has asked the court to consider “whether the IRA implicates an interest of pharmaceutical manufacturers that is protected by the Due Process Clause.”
In the first selection of drugs for Medicare negotiation, AstraZeneca’s diabetes medication Farxiga was selected. In the following round of drugs, its mantle cell lymphoma treatment Calquence was also chosen.
In its petition, AstraZeneca noted the looming deadline it faces. On Jan. 1, the prices it agreed to in the first round of bargaining for Farxiga in 2024 take effect. The Biden administration revealed last year that it had negotiated a 68 percent discount on Farxiga’s list price, with the company agreeing to sell it for $178.50, with its list price being $556.
“This case concerns the fate of a new government program that will overhaul the $600-billion prescription drug market and affect the lives and health of the 68 million Americans enrolled in Medicare,” AstraZeneca wrote in its petition.
“Contrary to its statutory name, it involves no genuine ‘negotiation.’ Rather, it compels pharmaceutical manufacturers to sell their most innovative and widely used medicines at prices unilaterally chosen by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on behalf of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).”
Numerous other lawsuits filed by drugmakers and trade groups challenging Medicare negotiation have been shot down in federal courts, with judges consistently finding that the law is not unconstitutional.
In May, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s ruling dismissing AstraZeneca’s lawsuit. The panel of judges soundly rejected the drugmaker’s claims of unconstitutionality or that it would suffer harm as a result of the IRA.
“There is no protected property interest in selling goods to Medicare beneficiaries (through sponsors or pharmacy benefit plans) at a price higher than what the government is willing to pay when it reimburses those costs,” the ruling stated.
“Pharma continues to recycle the same failed legal arguments against Medicare negotiation in its pursuit of maintaining complete monopoly power,” Merith Basey, executive director of Patients For Affordable Drugs, said in a statement.
“Starting January 1, millions of patients on Medicare will begin to see lower prices on lifesaving medications, including AstraZeneca’s blockbuster drug Farxiga,” she added. “After 14 courtroom defeats to date, this latest appeal is just another attempt by the industry to restrict the government’s power to secure a better deal for patients and delay the inevitable.”
