IRA like­ly to lead to high­er drug list prices and big­ger re­bates, Con­gres­sion­al Bud­get Of­fice pre­dicts

The Con­gres­sion­al Bud­get Of­fice ex­pects that drug­mak­ers will raise their prices and of­fer larg­er re­bates for new drugs be­cause of pro­vi­sions in the In­fla­tion Re­duc­tion Act, lead­ing to lit­tle change in net prices but ex­ac­er­bat­ing the gap be­tween list prices and what drugs ac­tu­al­ly cost.

In a let­ter sent to House Bud­get Com­mit­tee Chair Jodey Ar­ring­ton (R-TX) and Michael Burgess (R-TX) on Dec. 21, CBO Di­rec­tor Phillip Swagel re­spond­ed to the law­mak­ers’ re­quest for more in­for­ma­tion on how the of­fice is as­sess­ing the im­pact of the IRA. The CBO said it ex­pects the list price of drugs en­ter­ing the mar­ket to go up in re­sponse to the IRA’s in­fla­tion-re­bate pro­vi­sions and, to a less­er ex­tent, the Medicare drug price ne­go­ti­a­tion pro­vi­sions.

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