Facts about Report: Big Pharma to Start 2024 With Price Hikes

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These are the key facts of this story, as agreed upon by ¹Yahoo Finance, ²Reuters, ³CNBC, ⁴Washington Post, ⁵New York Post and ⁶The White House.

According to a report published by Reuters on Friday, large US drugmakers, including Pfizer, are reportedly planning to ring in the New Year with price hikes for more than 500 branded drugs.¹ Citing data and analysis from healthcare research firm 3 Axis Advisors, the report has predicted that over 140 brands of drugs, excluding doses and formulations, will have their prices increased in January.² Pfizer is expected to raise prices on 124 drugs, while Baxalta would follow with 53 hikes. However, three pharmaceutical companies, including GlaxoSmithKline, could lower prices on at least 15 drugs.³ The expected price hikes come after the Biden administration identified 10 high-cost prescription drugs for price negotiations with drugmakers as the federal government seeks to ease the financial burden on Medicare and its beneficiaries.⁴ According to data published by drug pricing non-profit 46brooklyn, US pharmaceutical companies raised prices on more than 1.4K drugs in 2023. Meanwhile, the median drug price increase hovered around 5%.⁵ Earlier this month, Pres. Joe Biden, under the Inflation Reduction Act, mandated drugmakers to pay rebates to Medicare enrollees for price hikes on prescription drugs that over 750K senior Americans take annually.⁶

And these are the key narratives that have emerged for this story:

Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by CNN. The federal government’s failed drug pricing reforms have neither quelled rising outrage over astronomical drug prices nor changed anything for the more than 200M Americans who are not on Medicare. It’s evident that Pres. Biden has embraced drug manufacturers’ exorbitant pricing as a primary business strategy, and he is simply not interested in reining in pharmaceutical monopolies. Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by USA Today. Pres. Biden’s 2022 climate and health law, also called the Inflation Reduction Act, pressures pharmaceutical companies to limit drug prices in several ways as well as penalizes pharmaceutical companies if they raise prices faster than inflation. While the GOP may fight tooth and nail to repeal the Act and put billions back in the pockets of Big Pharma, the Biden administration will continue to fight to lower costs for hardworking Americans. Cynical narrative, as provided by The New York Times. It’s incomprehensible that the federal government is letting the prices of essential medicines rise for too long. While inflation could be a convenient reason for the Biden administration to concede hefty price increases for drugs, it may be time to question: who is responsible for reining in inflation? If drugmakers are allowed an inflation-adjusted price, Americans will continue to pay more for prescription medications than any advanced nation on Earth. Nerd narrative, as provided by Metaculus. There’s a 50% chance that at least 15.6% of the US federal budget will be used for Medicare in 2024, according to the Metaculus prediction community.

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