Pfizer is paying Medicare rebates on 5 medicine as a part of Biden’s plan to chop Rx prices

President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the new Build Back Better legislation rules on prescription drug pricing in the East Room of the White House on December 6, 2021 in Washington, DC.

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Five of them Pfizers Drugs will cost less for Medicare beneficiaries starting next month as part of President Joe Biden’s plan to reduce prescription drug costs, the Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday.

Pfizer’s drugs are among the first 27 Part B prescription drugs to be subject to Medicare’s inflation rebates beginning April 1, according to the department. That requires Pfizer and other prescription drugmakers to reimburse Medicare through rebates, since the prices of those drugs have risen faster than the rate of inflation.

Pfizer’s drugs include the blood thinner Fragmin, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1994. It also includes Atgam, a drug used to treat the symptoms of renal transplants and aplastic anemia, and the chemotherapy injection Nipent. Also included are Pfizer’s antibacterial drugs Bicillin LA, used to treat syphilis, and Bicillin CR. Both drugs are also used to treat upper respiratory infections.

Seniors could see their prime cost of the drugs drop by $2 to as much as $390 per average dose, the department said. The amount that Medicare beneficiaries save depends on several factors, such as: B. their treatment protocol and whether they have additional insurance.

The savings come from a provision of the Inflation Reduction Act that Congressional Democrats passed last August. The announcement is also part of Biden’s broader push to lower healthcare costs for Americans amid stubbornly high inflation.

In addition to the rebates, the provision discourages other companies from raising their prices faster than inflation in the future, the department said. An HHS report released in September 2022 found that the prices of 1,200 prescription drugs rose faster than inflation in 2021, a year before the IRA was signed.

Later this year, Medicare will begin negotiating lower prescription drug prices for its beneficiaries.

“Already, millions of seniors are saving hundreds of dollars each year as a result of the Biden administration’s actions, and President Biden is fighting to extend those cost savings to all Americans,” the White House said in a statement.