Three pharma giants — Amgen, Genentech and Regeneron — will be hit harder than others if President Donald Trump's proposal to lower the cost of expensive physician-administered drugs moves forward as planned, according to a STAT news report.
President Trump announced Oct. 25 that his administration will establish an "international pricing index" and use it as a benchmark to decide how much Medicare would pay for drugs covered by Part B, which covers physician visits for seniors and drugs prescribed to them during their visits. The goal is to lower the costs of prescription drugs to the same levels that economically similar countries pay.
Amgen is one of the drug companies that will be hit hard because its osteoporosis drug, Prolia, costs four times more in the U.S. than in Europe, according to a new report from HHS. Cutting reimbursements for Prolia may hurt Amgen's bottom line considering the drug accounted for 7 percent of its sales in 2016, according to STAT.
Amgen's bone marrow stimulant, Neulasta, made up 21 percent of its global sales in 2016, and if Medicare paid what other countries paid, it would have saved $946 million.
The proposal will also affect Regeneron and Genentech, both of which have a drug that treats age-related macular degeneration. Medicare spent $2.2 billion on Regeneron's AMD drug Eylea in 2017, making it the costliest drug for the program. Genentech's Lucentis was nearly just as expensive.
Both of those drugs cost more in the U.S. than any other country, making them targets if HHS' pricing index proposal is implemented. HHS estimates it could have saved $892 million on Eylea in 2016 if it paid what other countries paid. The same goes for Lucentis, with HHS saying it would have saved $852 million.
Read the full STAT report here.