Six healthcare organizations sent a letter to HHS April 20 urging the department to prevent drugmakers from refusing to give 340B drug discounts.
The six organizations were the American Hospital Association, American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, Children’s Hospital Association, Association of American Medical Colleges, America’s Essential Hospitals and 340B Health.
The groups wrote that none of HHS' efforts have stopped Eli Lilly, Sanofi, AstraZeneca, Novartis, Novo Nordisk or United Therapeutics from refusing to provide "statutorily required" drug discounts to 340B hospitals that are dispensing those prescriptions via community pharmacies. They said the drugmakers' refusal to give 340B drug discounts has depleted resources hospitals use to care for patients who live in rural areas or have low incomes.
The HHS General Counsel issued an advisory opinion in December, in which it said drugmakers must provide 340B drug discounts for prescriptions dispensed through hospitals’ eligible contract pharmacies. The department said it would use a new administrative dispute resolution process to adjudicate the claims, but the process has not yet been established as it is going through legal challenges, according to the letter.
"We are respectfully requesting that the department immediately and definitively state that these refusals to provide discounts are illegal and take the action Congress specifically prescribed to address this type of situation – civil money penalties," the groups wrote.
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