First Round Of Drugs Up For Medicare Negotiation Gets Soft Landing

For all of the biopharmaceutical industry’s concerns that drug pricing provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act will stifle innovation, when the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released its list of the first 10 drugs subject to Medicare negotiations under the IRA, the stock market reaction was “meh.” Biotechnology stock indices closed up on 29 August and most of the big pharma firms facing Medicare negotiations for the first time in 2026 closed a bit higher as well.

Investors likely were nonplussed because the list was largely in line with expectations, including the anticoagulants Eliquis (apixaban) from Bristol Myers Squibb Company and Xarelto (rivaroxaban) from Johnson & Johnson as well as AbbVie Inc./J&J’s blood cancer medicine Imbruvica (ibrutinib) and Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH/Eli Lilly and Company’s diabetes drug Jardiance (empagliflozin)