Drugmakers are pushing back against Maryland’s Prescription Drug Affordability Board and its list of six medicines that will be reviewed for potential price caps.
The board is conducting studies of six drugs to decide if there are affordability issues, including Novo Nordisk’s weight loss drug Ozempic, AstraZeneca’s kidney disease drug Farxiga, Boehringer’s diabetes drug Jardiance, Eli Lilly’s diabetes drug Trulicity, Sanofi and Regeneron’s Dupixent, and AbbVie’s Skyrizi. Jardiance and Farxiga were also selected for negotiations with Medicare earlier this year under the Inflation Reduction Act.
Gilead’s HIV drug Biktarvy and Takeda’s Vyvanse were previously selected by the Maryland PDAB but are no longer listed by the state.
On June 24, Maryland’s Prescription Drug Affordability Stakeholder Council will meet for the first time following the submission of comments posted May 10. In those comments, drugmakers called on Maryland’s PDAB to not review their drugs without a better explanation of why they were selected and how setting list price limits will help patients.
“Simply capping the price of a prescription drug for the payor or pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) with an upper payment limit (UPL) will not directly help people at the pharmacy counter. Pharmacy counter prices are controlled by the patient’s insurance plan,” wrote Bridget Walsh, Boehringer’s VP of government affairs and public policy.
Ryan Urgo, head of policy at Novo Nordisk, also told PDAB that looking at list prices “is a poor indicator of the cost of a medication for most patients and health insurers.”
Controlling costs based on list price also may have unintended consequences, said Deanne Calvert, head of Sanofi’s state government relations, in the comments to the state.
“Over-emphasizing the list price of a medicine in Maryland’s cost review is unreasonable and will fail to adequately address patient access and affordability challenges,” Calvert wrote. “A price control will likely also have unintended consequences such as impairing patient access to their medicines and undercutting pharmaceutical innovation.”