Top of the morning to you, and a fine one it is. We can tell because the sun is shining and cool breezes are blowing by the Pharmalot campus, although they may dissipate as temperatures start climbing. Nonetheless, we are celebrating another busy day by firing up the coffee kettle for a cup or two of stimulation. Our choice today is raspberry chocolate. Please feel free to join us. Meanwhile, here is the latest menu of tidbits for you to peruse. We hope you have a simply smashing day and conquer the world, or what’s left of it. And as always, do stay in touch…
The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a major blow to a legal campaign by brand-name pharmaceutical companies against the Medicare drug price negotiation program, STAT tells us. The court declined to take up lawsuits against the program by AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Janssen, Novartis, and Novo Nordisk. The justices did not give a reason for their decision. The rejection was not a surprise. The drugmakers lost their appeals in lower courts, and the Supreme Court typically does not take up cases when there is agreement among lower courts. While this is not necessarily the end of the road for the drug industry, it may make remaining legal challenges more difficult.
The White House announced an expansion of its TrumpRx prescription drug discount platform, adding more than 600 generic drugs to the website, STAT says. The expansion comes via a partnership with entrepreneur Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drug Company, as well as Amazon Pharmacy and GoodRx, which both also provide drug savings or low-cost prescription medicines. The partnerships address one of the primary critiques of the TrumpRx platform: that many of the brand-name prescription medications offered were already available as generics for far less. TrumpRx also had far fewer drugs available than Cost Plus and GoodRx.
