Over the past week, the White House administration (the “Administration”) has issued two documents addressing drug pricing. First, on February 9, 2018, the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers released a white paper titled “Reforming Biopharmaceutical Pricing at Home and Abroad” (the “White Paper”).  Second, on February 12, 2018, the Administration issued its 2019 Budget Proposal (“2019 Budget”).

Whereas the recommendations set forth in the White Paper are more conceptual or exploratory, the 2019 Budget purportedly reflects the Administration’s more specific priorities for 2019. The developments are significant because, after outspoken pledges to reduce drug prices over a year ago, the White Paper and the 2019 Budget, taken together, are the Administration’s first attempt to set forth its drug pricing policy framework.

FY 2019 Budget Proposal Outline

The Administration’s 2019 Budget proposes strategies to address drug pricing reform in several areas.

• Medicaid: The 2019 Budget proposes for new Medicaid demonstration authority to allow five states to test drug coverage and financing reform. Under this demonstration, instead of participating in the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program, these states would determine their own drug formularies and negotiate drug prices directly with manufacturers, with the resulting negotiated prices being exempt from Best Price.
• Medicare Part B: With respect to the Medicare program, the 2019 Budget provides several proposals. First, the 2019 Budget would require all manufacturers of Part B drugs to report average sales price (“ASP”) data, and to penalize those who do not report ASP data. Additionally, the 2019 Budget proposes to limit the increase in ASP-based drug payment to the annual rate of inflation. For drugs reimbursed based on wholesale acquisition cost (“WAC”) rather than ASP, the 2019 Budget proposes to reduce this payment rate from 106% of WAC down to 103% of WAC. The 2019 Budget also proposes to modify reimbursement to hospitals for drugs acquired at 340B discounts by rewarding hospitals that provide charity care, and reducing payments to hospitals that provide little to no charity care. The 2019 Budget proposes to consolidate certain drugs covered under Part B into Part D coverage.
• Medicare Part D: For beneficiaries enrolled in Part D plans, the 2019 Budget proposes to establish an out-of-pocket maximum in the catastrophic coverage phase, eliminate cost-sharing for generic drugs for low-income seniors, and permanently authorize a Part D demonstration that provides retroactive and point-of-sale coverage to certain low-income patients.
• FDA: The 2019 Budget proposes to give the FDA greater ability to bring generics to market more quickly. If a first-to-file generic application is not yet approved due to deficiencies, the 2019 Budget proposes to allow the FDA to tentatively approve a subsequent generic application rather than waiting for the first-to-file application to amend its application deficiencies.

Council of Economic Advisers White Paper

The White Paper discusses options for drug pricing reforms that would impact Medicaid, Medicare, the 340B drug discount program, and FDA. The following provides a summary of the major ideas proposed in the White Paper:

• Medicaid: The White Paper contends that the determination of Best Price on a single unit of drug under the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program operates as an inducement to manufacturers to inflate commercial prices. The White Paper posits that CMS could revise the applicable rules for Best Price without conflicting with the statutory language, such that Best Price could be determined post-sale based on “the patient’s recovery”, i.e., the health outcome or effectiveness of the drug. The White Paper suggests that more clarity from CMS on value-based contracting would encourage drug purchasers to negotiate for lower prices.
• Medicare Part B: With respect to drugs reimbursable under Medicare Part B, the White Paper focuses on expensive specialty drugs and biologics administered by physicians. The White Paper contends that due to the cost-plus reimbursement methodology under Medicare Part B (ASP plus 6 per cent), physicians do not have incentives to prescribe cheaper medications to control costs. The White Paper cites solutions proposed by MedPAC and other government agencies to realign incentives including: (i) introducing physician reimbursement that is not tied to drug prices, (ii) moving Medicare Part B drug coverage into Medicare Part D, where price-competition over drug prices is better structured, and (iii) changing how pricing data is reported to increase transparency.
• Medicare Part D: The White Paper scrutinizes the Part D program as being structured in a manner that prevents pricing competition and causes “perverse incentives.” Specifically, the White Paper suggests that Part D’s requirement to cover at least two non-therapeutically equivalent products within each class and category prevents Part D sponsors from competitively negotiating lower prices and that the prohibition of formulary tier-based cost-sharing for low income beneficiaries creates a disincentive to use “high value” rather than high cost drugs. In addition, the White Paper states that since the 50% discount drug manufacturers are required to provide during the coverage gap is applied to the patient’s true out-of-pocket costs, enrollees have an incentive to use high cost drugs while in the coverage gap.In addition to making the specific observations above, the White Paper cites more general options proposed by MedPAC, OIG and other government agencies to address “misaligned incentives”: (i) requiring plans to share drug manufacturer discounts with patients, (ii) allowing plans to manage formularies to negotiate better prices for patients, (iii) lowering co-pays for generic drugs for patients; and (iv) discouraging plan formulary design that speeds patients to the catastrophic coverage phase of benefit and increases overall spending.
• 340B Drug Discount Program: The White Paper posits that there are two significant issues with the 340B Program. The first is “imprecise eligibility criteria has allowed for significant program growth beyond the intended purpose of the program.” The second is the use of program revenue for purposes other than providing care for low-income patients, which is what the Administration believes was originally intended. While not providing specifics, the White Paper suggests establishing “more precise” eligibility criteria as an alternative to the DSH percentage currently used to establish hospital eligibility, and requiring that the 340B discount more directly benefit poor patient populations.
• FDA: The White Paper suggests modifying the existing FDA criteria for expedited review to include new molecular entities that are second or third in a class, or second or third for a given indication for which there are no generic competitors. The White Paper states that this would reduce the time period a particular drug would be able to benefit from a higher price before facing generic competition. The White Paper also suggests policies aimed at reducing the cost of innovation, including having the FDA continue to facilitate the validation and qualification of new drug development tools that allow manufacturers to demonstrate safety and efficacy more efficiently and earlier, and speeding up the issuance of FDA final guidelines to add certainty and attract additional biosimilar applicants to the marketplace.
• Pharmacy Benefit Managers: The White Paper scrutinizes the PBM industry as having “outsized profits” due to the high concentration of the PBM market (3 PBMs account for 85% of the market) and criticizes the lack of transparency with respect to the rebates that PBMs receive. The White Paper states that the “undue market power” causes manufacturers to set artificially high list prices, which are reduced via rebates to PBMs without reducing the costs to consumers. The White Paper suggests that policies to decrease concentration in the PBM market could reduce the price of drugs paid by consumers.
• Drug Pricing in Foreign Countries: The White Paper discusses in detail how the United States bears a disproportionate share of the burden of the cost of innovation, since foreign governments, in exercising price control, are able to set drug prices lower than that in the United States. The White Paper suggests drug pricing reform abroad with the United States changing the incentives of foreign governments to price drugs at levels that reward innovation. The White Paper broadly suggests achieving this goal through enhanced trade policy or policies tying reimbursement levels in the United States to prices paid by foreign governments that set lower prices or other methods.

EBG Considerations

The combined result of the 2019 Budget and the White Paper is a hodgepodge of policy ideas that could impact a wide range of government programs and industry stakeholders throughout the drug distribution and reimbursement channel. While the proposals set forth in the 2019 Budget are more specific, the ideas in the White Paper are more conceptual and less developed.  For example, policies to address the high concentration of the PBM market and foreign government drug price control appear more aspirational and lack detail on what such policies would entail or how they would be accomplished.  This suggests that, while the 2019 Budget and White Paper are indicative of the Administration’s direction with respect to drug pricing policy, the policy is likely still a “work in progress” and subject to further development.