Melissa Andel of CommonHealth Dives Into the Inflation Reduction Act & What May Come at AMCP 2023

In this interview with Managed Healthcare Executive, Andel addressed how the Inflation Reduction Act put a focus on cost-shifting and price negotiation in the market.

In her presentation she wanted folks to be thinking about the consequences of the IRA and what's to come.

"How are these negotiated prices and Medicare going to influence pricing in the commercial market?," she asked. "The inflation penalty rebates are going to have reverberations in the commercial market, as well. (Folks need to think) about how the way the act is structured with respect to identifying and selecting drugs for negotiation, how that could maybe change the way that companies, generic companies, biosimilar companies. Think about patent litigation, patent settlement agreements. What are some of the potential consequences of this for generic and biosimilar launches down the line?

So it's really kind of thinking about the IRA, then the next step beyond."

She also mentioned the inflation penalty rebates will be interesting to follow this year.

"That inflation rate (in 2022) was so high and is actually within sort of the historical norms for average price increases that drug manufacturers have taken," Andel said. "I'm going to be interested to see just how much revenue they generate off of these inflation penalty rebates, the first year for part D, maybe the first few quarters for Part B."

She added it will be interesting to see how those rebates play into pricing decisions, but is unsure if they're going to be as impactful as policymakers or patients are thinking they're going to be.