Drugmakers set to raise prices on 500+ drugs this month

The following is from Reuters.

Drugmakers including Pfizer (PFE.N), Sanofi (SASY.PA) and Takeda Pharmaceutical (4502.T) plan to raise prices in the United States on more than 500 drugs in early January, according to data analyzed by healthcare research firm 3 Axis Advisors.

Excluding different doses and formulations, more than 140 brands of drugs will have their prices raised next month, the data showed.

The expected price hikes come as the pharmaceutical industry gears up for the Biden Administration to publish significantly discounted prices for 10 high-cost drugs in September, and continues to contend with higher inflation and manufacturing costs.

Under President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the government’s Medicare health program can negotiate prices directly for some drugs starting in 2026.

Worries are also growing about fresh disruption to supply chains from a prolonged Middle East conflict, with shippers forced to halt or reroute traffic from the Red Sea, the world’s main East-West trade route.

Three companies including GlaxoSmithKline (GSK.L), which last week said it would cut prices on some asthma, herpes and anti-epileptic drugs for 2024, are also expected to lower prices on at least 15 drugs in January, according to the data.

The cuts come after several companies have already announced price decreases for insulins earlier this year, in an effort to avoid penalties that could have been imposed under 2021’s American Rescue Plan Act if they had kept prices high.

Under the law, drug companies are required to rebate the Medicaid program if price increases on medicines outpace inflation – and beginning in January 2024 those rebates could even be larger than the actual net cost of the drug.