IRA Lawsuits Get Some Deadlines

The IRA-lawsuit story is about to enter a very, very dull phase. The four existing lawsuits, plus whatever other suits get filed, are going to continue to attract a tremendous amount of attention but the reality is that nothing is really going to happen in the near term. The wheels of justice grind slowly.

That means the actual price-setting process will continue apace, and it means you can probably just start skipping media coverage. You can absolutely skip today’s big Washington Post overview (unless you haven’t been paying attention and want to catch up). The Bloomberg Law coverage today -- which goes deeper into the case law -- is more useful, but it’s still an exercise in handicapping.

(The only piece that I want to read that I haven’t yet is a profile of the judges who will be hearing the cases.)

That said, there will be milestones in these cases where we’ll all have to pay attention. Merck and the government have floated a schedule for their case, and it might be worth circling these deadlines:

• July 11: Merck files a memo in support of its motion for summary judgment. I’m going to guess that won’t be hugely different than what they’ve already filed.

• Sept. 11: The government will respond and file their motion for summary judgment.

• Oct. 19: Merck’s reply to the government’s argument

• Nov. 21: The government’s response.

I’ll keep calendars coming as a) they become clear in the other cases and b) the courts validate the proposed deadlines.

• Walgreens had earnings yesterday. They were lousy, for COVID-related reasons, but the interesting piece -- “interesting” being a relative term -- was the company’s optimism about the prospect of continuing to profit from 340B. Per the company’s chief pharmacy officer: “We do think that we can offset some of the headwinds as we're looking at it, but do still see a good line of sight into what we've projected for this year, which is a slight growth.”

  • The transcript is here, and you can just CTRL-F for “340B” to get the good stuff.

• Politico has a good rundown on the economics and politics of getting Medicare to cover obesity meds, which -- as I keep saying -- is part the single biggest health policy debate we’ll have over the next decade.

• Last week, I made fun of Bernie Sanders for needing an editor for his rambling Fox News op-ed, so now it’s time to make fun of Republican operative Liz Mair for writing what I think was an anti-Sanders, anti-pharma missive for USA Today. She needs an editor, too. Geez.