Y A W N. So The CMS / Januvia® Price Negotiations Weren’t So Bad — To Merck — After All… Just As We Said.

The “silly whiners’” suit will now soon die.

And, Merck will dutifully, if not gladly, accept the US agencies’ pricing result for its juggernaut Januvia^®. [After all, there will be, by May 2026, on US market generics — for Januvia. This simply speeds up that time-line, by a bit.] Here’s a bit, from the day’s MSM (but I might cheekily note that, in terms of percentage discounts, Merck sees the highest cut — perhaps because it was the first to choose such an obviously baseless federal litigation pathway — and then only later, found it had to fold its tent):

…The Biden administration says Medicare recipients will save about $1.5 billion on out-of-pocket costs for medications to treat diabetes, heart disease, types of arthritis and other ailments under new prices negotiated with drug companies that will take effect in 2026.

The savings range from 79 percent for Januvia, used to manage diabetes, to 38 percent for Imbruvica, which is used to treat blood cancers. That is the medication’s cost before any discounts or rebates are applied, but not what the price people actually pay when filling their prescriptions….

Now you know — in some ways, this is just another immaterial quasi-Hatch-Waxman early launch of a generic. So… Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris have ACTUALLY done What Tangerine promised he would do, in 2018 — but never even made a first attempt at: helping seniors with high drug costs.

Onward, smiling in spite of myself.

नमस्ते