Operator: Good morning and welcome to Cerevel Therapeutics Second Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode.
Injectable versions of some widely-used cancer drugs including Johnson & Johnson's blockbuster multiple myeloma treatment Darzalex are likely to be excluded from new U.S. government price negotiations for years, drugmakers told Reuters, protecting billions in revenue. J&J, Merck & Co, which is testing an injectable version of its top-selling immunotherapy Keytruda, and Halozyme Therapeutics, which licenses the critical new ingredient, hyaluronidase, for subcutaneous drugs, all told Reuters they believe the reformulation qualifies the medicines to be treated like new drugs. President Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) allows the government Medicare health program for the first time to negotiate prices for some of its most costly drugs, starting at a minimum discount of 25% to a drug's price.
Focus: Drugmakers go under the skin, skirting early US Medicare price negotiations reuters.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from reuters.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.