Drug companies reluctantly accept state price negotiations
By 
Anthony King2024-10-10T11:00:00
As legal challenges fall flat, will industry’s claims of stifled innovation be borne out?
In 2022, US president Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) introduced a mechanism for the state-backed health insurance programme Medicare to negotiate drug prices directly with pharmaceutical firms. The industry’s response was scathing, with lawsuits claiming the move was unconstitutional, and dire warnings of stifling innovation and R&D investment.