PhRMA Loses Again: Fifth Circuit Upholds Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program
WASHINGTON D.C. — The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a challenge to the Medicare drug price negotiation program launched by the drugmakers’ trade association, PhRMA. Public Citizen filed an amicus brief in the case co-signed by Families USA, Doctors For America and Protect Our Care.
Peter Maybarduk, Access to Medicines director for Public Citizen, issued the following statement:
“Medicare drug price negotiation is here to stay. Every court to consider the drug makers’ challenges have agreed that the negotiation program is lawful. PhRMA has lost, and taxpayers win.
For years, drugmakers sought to sow doubt and find a sympathetic court, fighting something everyone wants, which is affordable medicine and a government that negotiates aggressively on Americans’ behalf. They failed. Now, Congress has an opportunity to make negotiation stronger, not only for Medicare but for all payers and all people, and ensure that Americans no longer pay the highest prices in the world for medicine.”