Sidney Lupkin
Appearances
NPR News Now
NPR News: 03-05-2025 6PM EST
Novo Nordisk is joining its competitor Eli Lilly and offering its obesity drug direct-to-consumers at a discount. Lilly started offering vials of its weight loss drug Zepbound online last summer. The direct-to-consumer model is fairly new to the pharmaceutical industry, but it wouldn't work for every medicine, says Dr. Ben Rome, a health policy researcher at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 03-05-2025 6PM EST
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, two in five American adults is obese. Sydney Lepkin, NPR News.
Up First from NPR
Hearing For Wrongly Deported Man, Prescription Drug Prices, Harvard Battle Continues
Yeah, the administration says it can do a better job at negotiating the prices Medicare pays for drugs. It's not clear from the action exactly how that would be the case. And I have to say that a lot of the savings on drug prices are
Up First from NPR
Hearing For Wrongly Deported Man, Prescription Drug Prices, Harvard Battle Continues
baked into the biden administration law that gave medicare negotiating power in the first place it allowed 10 drugs to be negotiated last year and 15 more this year next year another 15 should be up for negotiation so over time the savings should add up but the executive action asks the health secretary and congress to fix what the administration sees as a flaw in the law
Up First from NPR
Hearing For Wrongly Deported Man, Prescription Drug Prices, Harvard Battle Continues
It treats prescription pills like some cancer drugs differently from more complex biotech drugs like the blockbuster rheumatoid arthritis drug, Humira. The pills are eligible for Medicare negotiation sooner, seven years after FDA approval, compared with 11 years for drugs like Humira. The proposal would level the playing field, but it would require a change in the law.
Up First from NPR
Hearing For Wrongly Deported Man, Prescription Drug Prices, Harvard Battle Continues
Yeah, it does. There's a lot in the executive action. It has 14 different sections. It takes aim at middlemen called pharmacy benefit managers, which handle drug coverage for health insurance. The order tells officials to look for ways to increase transparency into how they're compensated. The companies have been criticized for not passing on savings to consumers.
Up First from NPR
Hearing For Wrongly Deported Man, Prescription Drug Prices, Harvard Battle Continues
It also instructs the FDA to streamline its generic drug approvals process and to better facilitate state programs to import lower-cost drugs from Canada. The drug importation push actually started under the first Trump administration, and it just hasn't gotten much traction.
Up First from NPR
Hearing For Wrongly Deported Man, Prescription Drug Prices, Harvard Battle Continues
bit in this executive order is familiar. The first Trump administration made several attempts to lower drug prices, and that included importing drugs from Canada and speeding generic approvals. It also proposed pegging drug prices in the U.S. to lower prices paid in other countries, but that didn't happen. So when it came to drug prices as a campaign issue last year, Trump didn't say much.
Up First from NPR
Hearing For Wrongly Deported Man, Prescription Drug Prices, Harvard Battle Continues
This is really the first time in a while we're hearing about drug prices. Here's Juliet Kubanski, a Medicare drug pricing expert at the nonpartisan research group KFF.
Up First from NPR
Hearing For Wrongly Deported Man, Prescription Drug Prices, Harvard Battle Continues
High drug prices are a big deal to voters, whether they're Democrats or Republicans.
Up First from NPR
Hearing For Wrongly Deported Man, Prescription Drug Prices, Harvard Battle Continues
You know, that's unclear. Executive orders can only do so much. In this case, the action is telling the FDA to take certain steps, instructing his HHS secretary to work with Congress, instructing officials to come up with regulatory solutions. So a lot will depend on all these different players working together.
Up First from NPR
Hearing For Wrongly Deported Man, Prescription Drug Prices, Harvard Battle Continues
On, for example, drug importation, states have to submit very specific plans for each drug they want to import even after the FDA approves their general approach. FDA approved Florida's drug importation program last January, but by November, it still wasn't bringing in drugs from Canada.
Up First from NPR
Hearing For Wrongly Deported Man, Prescription Drug Prices, Harvard Battle Continues
So this presidential order could build on efforts to lower drug prices, but only if Congress and other officials find a way to solve some of these challenges.
Up First from NPR
Hearing For Wrongly Deported Man, Prescription Drug Prices, Harvard Battle Continues
You bet.