Med­ic­aid com­mis­sion to Con­gress: In­crease re­bates for ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval drugs

As the FDA con­tin­ues to ap­prove more new drugs un­der its ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval path­way, the non-par­ti­san Med­ic­aid and CHIP Pay­ment and Ac­cess Com­mis­sion (MAC­PAC) is telling Con­gress to in­crease the statu­to­ry Med­ic­aid re­bates for such drugs un­til their clin­i­cal ben­e­fits have been ver­i­fied.

High­er re­bates for drugs with ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­provals, a move op­posed by the bio­phar­ma in­dus­try, would mean low­er net prices, less­en­ing their fi­nan­cial bur­den on the health care sys­tem while in­cen­tiviz­ing the com­pa­nies to speed the ver­i­fi­ca­tion of the drugs’ clin­i­cal ben­e­fits in con­fir­ma­to­ry tri­als. Once those ben­e­fits are con­firmed, the com­pa­nies would re­turn to the low­er re­bates when the ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval is con­vert­ed in­to a full ap­proval, MAC­PAC sug­gests.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER