Press Releases
Watchdog: For Fifth Time, Federal Judge Rejects Big Drug Industry Challenge to Biden Rx Medicare Negotiation Action
WASHINGTON, D.C. – In the latest win for seniors and patients struggling to afford their needed medications, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court of Connecticut has rejected pharmaceutical giant Boehringer Ingelheim’s challenge to the Inflation Reduction Act’s measures giving Medicare the power to negotiate lower prices directly with drug manufacturers. Boehringer Ingelheim manufactures the diabetes drug Jardiance — among the first 10 drugs the Biden administration selected for negotiation – and failed to convince the judge the historic and hugely popular drug pricing law is unconstitutional on any of the four points they sued on.
While the ruling marked the fifth time a federal courtroom upheld Medicare’s power to negotiate, big pharma continues to push legal challenges to stop the administration from lowering Americans’ drug costs to protect the industry’s record profits. Trade group PhRMA recently presented oral arguments in the right-wing Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on their appeal against a Texas federal judge’s dismissal of their case to block Medicare negotiation. The Fifth Circuit has faced increasing scrutiny over its routine involvement in industry’s judge and venue shopping legal strategy. Bristol Myers Squibb and J&J have already moved to appeal their similar losses to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
Big drug companies keep shuffling from one courtroom to the next to claim they can and should be able to inflate prices as high as they want on life-saving medicines – and their arguments continue to fall flat. Big pharma has already lost in the court of public opinion on claims they need to keep drug prices unaffordable after boasting record industry profits. But no matter how many federal judges affirm Medicare’s power to negotiate lower drug costs, industry CEOs will continue suing to delay seniors from saving billions of dollars a year as long as they can. Clogging the court system seeking validation for industry price-gouging practices is corporate greed at its worst.”
