$56K Alzheimer's drug avoiding Biden's cost curbs, for now [View all]
Source: Associated Press
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR 15 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — A new $56,000-a-year Alzheimer’s medication that’s leading to one of the biggest increases ever in Medicare premiums is highlighting the limitations of President Joe Biden’s strategy for curbing prescription drug costs.
The medication known as Aduhelm would be protected from Medicare price negotiations for more than a decade under the Democratic drug pricing compromise before Congress, part of Biden’s social agenda legislation. That’s because the bill doesn’t allow Medicare to negotiate over newly launched drugs, providing a window for drugmakers to recoup investments in research and development. Biologics such as Aduhelm get 13 years of protection.
Seniors soon will be paying higher premiums so Medicare can set aside a contingency fund to cover Aduhelm, which is made by the pharmaceutical company Biogen. It’s the first Alzheimer’s medication in nearly 20 years. But its benefits have been widely questioned.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-health-business-prescription-drug-costs-prescription-drugs-e2eb18059c54ec2091b7486698af84f4
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Usually the financial impact of high-cost drugs falls most directly on patients with serious diseases such as cancer, rheumatoid arthritis or multiple sclerosis. But with Aduhelm, the financial pain is being spread among Medicare recipients generally, not just Alzheimer’s patients needing the drug.
“This is the poster child drug for showing how one medication can have a high impact on premiums and costs incurred by people on Medicare, not just those who are taking that drug,” said Tricia Neuman, a Medicare expert with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. “This is not a hypothetical question: ‘Do drug prices impact premiums?’ This is a case closed.”
You think it is time to come out of the cave and be like other industrialized countries....
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