By Jared S. Hopkins
Drugmakers raised the list prices of more than 800 prescription drugs for blood pressure, cancer and other conditions by a median 4% at the start of this year.
The modest size of the annual increases could help companies avoid criticism of gouging from President Trump while seeking his administration's support for such priorities as taking aim at the rebates given to middlemen and altering a federal program providing discounts to certain hospitals. Last year's median price increase was 4.5%.
Prices rose on brand-name medicines sold by companies ranging from Pfizer to Novartis and Bristol-Myers Squibb, according to an analysis for The Wall Street Journal by 46brooklyn, a nonprofit drug-pricing research group.
Although most companies kept increases below 10%, some drugs were already so expensive that even relatively moderate boosts can add hundreds or even thousands of dollars to the monthly tab.
The list price of psoriasis treatment Otezla increased to about $5,325 a month, after a 7% increase by maker Amgen. Roche Holding raised the price of its hemophilia treatment Hemlibra by 8%, with the drug costing about $600,000 a year for the average patient. Makers increased the prices of popular diabetes and weight-loss drugs by 3% or less.
Some smaller companies, meantime, raised prices on drugs for pain, cancer and other conditions by double-digit percentages.
The impact for patients will depend on their health plans. It is the plan that usually pays most of the cost of a prescription, often after securing a discount off the list price. Insured patients could pay a larger deductible, monthly copay or other out-pocket cost because the list price of a prescription went up.
Amgen said its list prices didn't reflect the rebates it provides, and the average prices of its medicines after rebates was declining. A Roche spokesman said costs could vary based on a patient's weight and dosage. He added that even after the price increase, Hemlibra's price remains lower than other preventive hemophilia treatments.
Companies generally said they raised prices to help fund the cost of drug development, and to pay for the rebates negotiated with firms that manage drug benefits.
Drugmakers usually raise prices every year, often in January, with companies this year calculating the increases even as they seek to get on the good side of Trump and the new administration.
Trump has promoted the powers of medicines, such as the antiviral from biotech Regeneron Pharmaceuticals that helped him overcome Covid-19. Yet he has also lambasted high drug costs, which his first administration pushed to reduce.
By exercising price restraint this year, drugmakers can steer clear of Trump's criticism while pursuing his support for their initiatives.
"People really can't tell whether Trump and the administration are going to move forward with looking at drug pricing again," said Rena Conti, an associate professor of markets, public policy and law at Boston University's Questrom School of Business.
Among the pharmaceutical industry's goals: dialing back a large and costly hospital drug-discount program and the use of price rebates by middlemen known as pharmacy-benefit managers, which negotiate the discounts on behalf of employers, unions and other organizations.
Companies also want to change a provision in federal law stipulating when Medicare can negotiate the price it pays for pills.
The chief executives of Pfizer, Eli Lilly and an industry trade group dined last month with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
"There's more common ground than perhaps meets the eye," said Steve Ubl, chief executive of the trade group, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. The role of pharmacy-benefit managers and other matters "are ripe for action."
Also encouraging more moderate increases is a provision in the Inflation Reduction Act, which requires companies pay a rebate if they boost a drug's price by more than the rate of inflation. Instead, drugmakers have launched medicines at higher list prices than in the past, Conti said.
"We are settling into a new normal," she said.
For its review, 46brooklyn looked at drug price increases through the middle of January.
Among the largest moves was a 20% price increase for rare eye disorder treatment Cystaran and a 15% price increase for Hodgkin lymphoma treatment Matulane by Leadiant Biosciences, part of Italian company Essetifin.
Leadiant didn't provide a comment.
United Therapeutics raised prices on three medicines, including pediatric cancer drug Unituxin by 9.9% to $19,047 a vial. The drug's price has risen more than 80% since 2016.
The company's price increases were largely driven by higher costs of doing business because of inflation and developing drugs for more uses, and wouldn't affect patient access, a United Therapeutics spokesman said.
Among companies, Pfizer took the most total increases, raising prices on more than 60 medications, most of which are used in a hospital and injected. The company also increased the prices of cancer drugs Xalkori and Ibrance and the Covid-19 antiviral pill Paxlovid.
The company made sure to keep its overall average price increases below the rate of inflation, but did so to pay for its research and address increased business costs, a spokeswoman said.
Novartis raised the prices on more than 40 of its medicines. The list price for the company's widely used breast cancer treatment Kisqali went up 8%, to between $7,640 and $19,100 a month depending on the dose.
The average price after discounts of drugs across the company's product portfolio has decreased this year compared with last year, a Novartis spokesman said.
Bristol raised prices on more than a dozen drugs, including a 9% increase on cancer cell-therapy Breyanzi to $531,350. The list price for the one-time treatment has grown by 27% since 2023.
The price reflects the "potentially transformative" value of cell therapies, and doesn't reflect the discounts the companies provides, a Bristol spokeswoman said.
Write to Jared S. Hopkins at jared.hopkins@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 28, 2025 15:00 ET (20:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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