Activists protest rising drug prices outside the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services building in Washington, D.C., Oct. 6, 2022.
Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images
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Good evening! The first round of the Biden administration's Medicare drug price negotiations is coming to a close, with two key deadlines looming.
The Inflation Reduction Act signed by President Joe Biden gave Medicare the authority to negotiate drug prices directly with manufacturers for the first time in the federal program’s nearly six-decade history. The process is aimed at making expensive drugs more affordable for older Americans, but the pharmaceutical industry argues it poses a threat to its revenue, profits and innovation in medicine.
The government and manufacturers have been in talks since February, when Medicare sent out its initial price proposal for each of the 10 drugs selected nearly a year ago. That includes diabetes treatments from Merck, AstraZeneca Boehringer Ingelheim and blood thinners from Johnson & Johnson And bristol myers squibbamong other medications.
The negotiation period officially ends next Thursday. The Medicare program is scheduled to publish final drug prices by early September, although the exact timing remains unclear.
These prices will take effect in 2026.
The government and drugmakers have remained largely tight-lipped about the nature of the negotiations. But companies have said they have factored any impact from the price talks into their long-term financial forecasts.
“We have received the final numbers from the government. We will not share them at this time,” Jennifer Taubert, president of innovative medicine at Johnson & Johnson, said on a call last week. “While we disagree with the Inflation Reduction Act and the price-setting process, those numbers were included in the guidance we provided last year … which still looks very good to us today.”
Meanwhile, Merck filed lawsuits, Novartis And Novo Nordisk The lawsuits against the negotiations are awaiting decisions in district courts. Each case raises claims that overlap with lawsuits by AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Johnson & Johnson that have been dismissed in recent months.
After this initial round of talks, Medicare can negotiate prices for 15 more drugs in 2027 and 15 more in 2028. The number increases to 20 negotiated drugs per year from 2029 onwards.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the front-runner to replace Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee after he dropped out of the 2024 race on Sunday, is likely to try to expand negotiations if elected, experts told CNBC.
Feel free to send any tips, suggestions, story ideas or data to Annika at annikakim.constantino@nbcuni.com.
The latest in healthcare technology
Abridge, Epic, and Mayo Clinic Bring Generative AI to Nurses
Hands, tablet and doctor with 3D body image, overlay and DNA research for medical innovation on app. Doctor, nurse and touch screen for writing on anatomy study or 3D user experience in clinic
Jacob Wackerhausen | iStock | Getty Images
AI tools come to nurses.
Epic Systems, Abridge and Mayo Clinic announced Tuesday they're building a new AI-powered solution to help automate some of the observations nurses have to make.
Like doctors, nurses are required to complete a mountain of administrative tasks like paperwork, and the workload contributes to the high rate of burnout in health care. At Mayo Clinic, for example, which cares for more than 1.3 million patients worldwide each year, documentation is one of the biggest pain points for nurses, said Rhiannon Frederick, Mayo Clinic’s chief nursing officer.
“In our current environment, they are now spending a significant amount of time on the work that is required, but it is not necessarily utilizing the full skill set that they bring to the table,” Frederick told CNBC.
“We have to find ways to make their work easier so we can use their skills, experience and intelligence where patients need it most,” Frederick added.
Founded in 2018, Abridge originally developed an AI documentation tool for physicians and has deployed it across healthcare systems like Sutter Health, Yale New Haven Health System, Emory Healthcare, and others. When physicians meet with patients, they can use Abridge to consensually record their conversations and automatically convert them into clinical notes and summaries.
In March, Abridge CEO Dr. Shiv Rao said the company was saving some doctors up to three hours a day. The natural next step is to design the technology and bring those benefits to nurses.
“We say there is a public health emergency of clinical burnout and staffing shortages, but I would say that this public health emergency is not more acute on the nursing side,” Rao told CNBC.
Abridge’s technology integrates directly with Epic, a healthcare software company that maintains patient medical records for more than 305 million people worldwide. The two companies collaborated on the new nursing tool over the past year through Epic’s “Workshop” program, said Garrett Adams, Epic’s vice president of research and development. Microsoft’s Nuance Communications, which makes a competing AI documentation tool, is also participating in the program.
Mayo Clinic has seen some prototypes of Abridge’s nursing tool and tested it in a simulation center, but it’s still in its early stages, Frederick said. It’s important to make sure the solution actually solves the problems its staff faces, she said, so Mayo Clinic will continue to test and evaluate it before rolling it out more widely.
Abridge plans to bring its nursing documentation tool to other healthcare organizations in the future.
Feel free to send any tips, suggestions, story ideas or data to Ashley at ashley.capoot@nbcuni.com.
