Striving for Affordable Medicine: Lessons in Price Negotiation Learned from the United Kingdom

In August 2022, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) were granted unprecedented power to negotiate the price of some pharmaceuticals covered under Medicare Part D of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Price negotiation was previously banned by Medicare Part D legislation but is not a new idea globally. For decades, nations like the United Kingdom (UK) have price set or negotiated the cost of medicine with manufacturers, fine tuning their methodologies, with mixed success. The United States (US) can learn from other countries' work to develop a methodology capable of achieving increased affordability and patient access to medicine. Secretary Xavier Becerra should consider the UK's policy approach, which facilitates early and transparent collaboration with key stakeholders like patient groups and industry but limits flexibility in evidence submission, to help the US minimize unintended damage to patient access to new medicines and achieve the IRA's goals.