{"id":159690,"date":"2025-11-26T00:03:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T00:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/159690\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T00:03:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T00:03:06","slug":"medicare-announces-price-cuts-for-15-prescription-drugs-including-ozempic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/159690\/","title":{"rendered":"Medicare announces price cuts for 15 prescription drugs, including Ozempic"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Tuesday announced<\/a> lower prices on 15 costly prescription drugs<\/a> under Medicare, including Ozempic and Wegovy. <\/p>\n

The price cuts come through the Medicare drug price negotiation program created under the Inflation Reduction Act<\/a>, which President Joe Biden signed into law in 2022. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s different from President Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cmost favored nation\u201d drug pricing approach<\/a>, which relies on executive orders and voluntary deals with drugmakers \u2014 not legislation. Trump recently announced such a deal with Novo Nordisk<\/a>, the maker of Ozempic and Wegovy, to lower the price of the drugs in exchange for tariff relief.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has been largely quiet about the Medicare price negotiation program.<\/p>\n

This marks the second round of negotiations. Last year, the Biden administration reached deals on 10 prescription drugs<\/a>, including several for heart disease and diabetes. Those price cuts are set to take effect in 2026. This latest round of price negotiations will go into effect in 2027.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump directed us to stop at nothing to lower health care costs for the American people,\u201d Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a press release<\/a>. \u201cAs we work to Make America Healthy Again, we will use every tool at our disposal to deliver affordable health care to seniors.\u201d <\/p>\n

Drugmakers can choose not to strike deals under the negotiation program, but doing so would likely mean withdrawing their drugs from Medicare \u2014 cutting them off from one of the nation\u2019s largest markets. Drugmakers have challenged the program in court but so far have been unsuccessful. <\/p>\n

The negotiated prices are what Medicare will pay drugmakers for the medicines, not what patients will pay out of pocket. Those discounts will save taxpayers $12 billion, according to CMS. It\u2019s expected to save Medicare enrollees $685 million in out of pocket costs in 2027. <\/p>\n

Here are the negotiated prices for the drugs<\/a>, based on a 30-day supply, compared to the 2024 list price:<\/p>\n

Ozempic, Rybelsus and Wegovy, for Type 2 diabetes and weight loss: $274 negotiated price, down from the $959 list price. (Negotiated prices for higher doses of Wegovy are $385.)Trelegy Ellipta, an asthma treatment: $175, down from $654.Xtandi, for prostate cancer: $7,004, down from $13,480.Pomalyst, a chemotherapy drug: $8,650, down from $21,744.Ofev, for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: $6,350, down from $12,622.Ibrance, a breast cancer drug: $7,871, down from $15,741.Linzess, a chronic constipation drug: $136, down from $539.Calquence, a cancer drug: $8,600, down from $14,228.Austedo and Austedo XR, for Huntington\u2019s disease: $4,093, down from $6,623.Breo Ellipta, a COPD drug: $67, down from $397.Xifaxan, for diarrhea and irritable bowel syndrome: $1,000, down from $2,696.Vraylar, an antipsychotic drug: $770, down from $1,376.Tradjenta, a diabetes drug: $78, down from $488. Janumet and Janumet XR, diabetes drugs: $80, down from $526.Otezla, a psoriatic arthritis drug: $1,650, down from $4,722.<\/p>\n

The 15 drugs accounted for $42.5 billion, or 15%, of total Medicare Part D spending in 2024. Medicare Part D covers medications that people take at home, as opposed to those administered in a facility, such as IV chemotherapy. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe price negotiations look very reasonable to me,\u201d Stacie Dusetzina, a health policy professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. \u201cIt should hopefully provide some relief for taxpayers and beneficiaries in the long run.\u201d <\/p>\n

Dusetzina said the $274 negotiated price for Ozempic and Wegovy is higher than the $250 price in Trump\u2019s deal. \u201cThey should\u2019ve gotten that deal for the taxpayers and the Medicare beneficiaries,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The price cuts come as many Americans say the cost of prescription drugs is unaffordable.<\/p>\n

About 1 in 5 adults say they\u2019ve skipped filling a prescription because it was too expensive, according to a survey published in July by health policy research group KFF<\/a>. About 1 in 7 say they have cut pills in half or skipped doses of medicine in the last year because of the cost. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Tuesday announced lower prices on 15 costly prescription drugs under…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[103,61,60,371],"class_list":{"0":"post-159690","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-medication"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}