Patients For Affordable Drugs Files Fourth Patient-Focused Amicus Brief, Defending The Historic Drug Pricing Law Against Attacks By Big Pharma

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Patients For Affordable Drugs (P4AD) filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, defending Medicare’s ability to negotiate lower drug prices against a lawsuit brought by pharmaceutical giant Novartis. The lawsuit is part of a broader industry-wide legal assault aimed at dismantling the 2022 prescription drug law’s historic drug pricing reforms and restoring Big Pharma’s unchecked monopoly power.

Novartis – which raked in $7.8 billion from its blockbuster heart failure drug Entresto in 2024 – is suing the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to block Medicare’s ability to negotiate a lower price for Entresto, mirroring the already-rejected legal arguments made by other drugmakers in their desperate attempts to preserve sky-high drug prices.

This is the fourth amicus brief P4AD has filed on behalf of patients. You can find the full written brief HERE.

“Novartis has raked in billions of dollars from Entresto while patients are forced to make impossible choices just to afford it,” said Merith Basey, Executive Director of Patients For Affordable Drugs. “Now, instead of accepting accountability, Novartis is fighting to protect its monopoly pricing power – challenging the law and the will of the American people. This lawsuit isn’t about constitutional rights – it’s about corporate greed and preserving massive profits at the expense of patients.

“Medicare negotiation will finally bring long-overdue relief to the hundreds of thousands of patients who rely on Entresto when its list price is reduced by 53% in 2026. But instead of honoring the new lower price they agreed to through the negotiation process – a process they willingly participated in – Novartis ran to the courts in a desperate attempt to block this progress. It’s US vs. Big Pharma, and we won’t let Novartis or other drug companies strip away this hard-fought victory from patients.”

The amicus brief features the story of Bob Parant, who began taking Entresto in 2021 after emergency triple bypass surgery. As a patient on Medicare needing both Entresto and insulin, Bob couldn’t afford both before the 2022 prescription drug law went into effect, forcing him to switch to less effective insulin at great risk to his health. As a patient advocate, he’s met many others who skip or substitute critical medications due to cost, leading to serious complications.

Over the last six years, sales of Entresto have increased by a staggering 680% and have resulted in billions of dollars in revenue for Novartis. More than 664,000 patients on Medicare relied on Entresto in 2023 – and starting in 2026, the new negotiated list price of Entresto will be $295 a reduction of 53%, providing critical relief to patients enrolled in Medicare.

The amicus brief also highlights the wide-scale economic impact of Medicare negotiations:

$100 billion: Taxpayer savings from Medicare negotiation through 2031.
$1.5 billion annually: Estimated out-of-pocket savings for people on Medicare Part D starting in 2026.
656,967 fewer deaths: Projected over seven years due to improved treatment adherence, with nearly 94,000 lives saved annually from reduced out-of-pocket costs from Medicare negotiation.
$6 billion: Estimated savings to Medicare if lower negotiated prices had been in effect in 2023.
$237 billion: Projected total savings to the government from the Inflation Reduction Act through 2031.

BACKGROUND

Despite the $372 million lobbying campaign by the pharmaceutical industry and its allies to stop the Inflation Reduction Act, the reforms are already reining in prescription drug costs for millions of patients.
To date, federal judges have rejected eight lawsuits filed by the pharmaceutical industry and its allies to block implementation of Medicare negotiation.
P4AD previously filed an amicus brief on January 22nd in the Boehringer Ingelheim case in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, as well as in cases brought by pharmaceutical giants Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS), Janssen, and AstraZeneca on September 12, 2024, and an amicus brief on December 19 in the case brought by Novo Nordisk.
P4AD has also signed onto seven amicus briefs led by Public Citizen and with allies Protect Our Care, Doctors for America, and Families USA.

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Patients For Affordable Drugs is the only national patient advocacy organization focused exclusively on policies that lower prescription drug prices. We empower and mobilize patients by amplifying their experiences with high drug prices to hold those in power to account and fight to shape and achieve system-changing policies that make prescription drugs affordable for all people in the United States. P4AD does not accept funding from organizations that profit from the development and distribution of drugs. To learn more, visit PatientsForAffordableDrugs.org.