Lawmakers urge HHS to force Lilly to provide 340B drug discounts

Ed’s stories explore prescription drug pricing, affordability and access, as well issues surrounding patents, litigation, and legislation. He is also the author of the morning Pharmalittle newsletter and the afternoon Pharmalot newsletter.

Dozens of congressional lawmakers are urging the Trump administration to force Eli Lilly to reinstate mandated price breaks to hospitals that participate in a federal drug discount program but have refused to provide the company with claims data.

In a letter to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the bipartisan group of lawmakers argued that Lilly is failing to comply with federal law by eliminating the price breaks. The drugmaker stopped offering discounts last month to reduce what it calls duplicate discounts paid to the hospitals.

At the time, Lilly targeted 50 larger hospital systems among approximately 1,000 hospitals that had not complied with a new policy that was announced this year. The company maintained that roughly 70% of the hospitals that participate in the discount program, or more than 2,300, had previously provided claims data.