STAT+: Medicare quietly gave blockbuster AbbVie drug seven extra years before price negotiations, advocacy group asserts
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- A consumer advocacy group's analysis found a little-noticed Medicare policy shift delayed selection of a costly AbbVie medicine for federal price negotiations by seven years.
- The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) made the change while preparing a new round of talks with drugmakers over prices the agency would pay for a limited number of medicines.
- The Inflation Reduction Act, which became law in 2022, created the drug price negotiation process in response to rising prescription drug costs.
- The advocacy group asserts the seven-year delay will likely hurt taxpayers, since the government keeps paying higher prices during those extra years.
Why it matters: Medicare's quiet policy shift shields AbbVie's costly medicine from the negotiation process for seven additional years, meaning the federal government and taxpayers continue paying higher prices for the drug instead of capturing the savings the Inflation Reduction Act's negotiation framework was designed to deliver.
