Biden to tout efforts to lower prescription drug costs in NIH visit

President Biden will travel to the National Institutes of Health in Maryland on Thursday to deliver remarks highlighting how a signature piece of legislation is capping prescription drug costs.

Biden will make the short trip to Bethesda to announce that dozens of pharmaceutical companies will be required to pay rebates to Medicare because they raised drug prices faster than the rate of inflation.

The Inflation Reduction Act, a sweeping climate and health care law Biden signed in 2022, gives the government the authority to crack down on price gouging around prescription drugs and require companies to pay rebates back to Medicare.

The White House said in the last quarter of 2023 that 48 Medicare Part B drugs raised prices faster than inflation. The rebate payments are expected to save seniors who take those drugs between $1 and $2,786 per dose, the White House said.

“While Republicans in Congress fight tooth and nail to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act and put money back in the pockets of Big Pharma, President Biden won’t back down from the fight to lower costs for hardworking Americans and make sure every family has access to affordable health care,” the White House said in a statement.

Biden has for months sought to emphasize how the Inflation Reduction Act has helped lower daily costs for many Americans on medication and energy bills, among other items. The White House has taken additional steps in recent weeks to get more aggressive about lowering prices.

The administration last week announced it had the authority to “march in” and break the patents of drugs developed using taxpayer money if the administration considers them to be too expensive. 

In a short video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, Biden said the move was a “very important step towards ending price gouging, so you don’t have to pay more for medicine than you need.”