BioCentury
ARTICLE | Politics & Policy

Massachusetts Senate digs in on price negotiation

May 8, 2019 11:17 PM UTC

The Massachusetts Senate is taking an aggressive approach to drug price negotiations for the state's MassHealth Medicaid program in its proposed FY20 budget.

The Senate version of the state’s Medicaid drug pricing legislation, included in its FY20 budget bill, follows the House’s passage of a diluted its version of its bill. The Senate’s legislation would require drug manufacturers to publicly justify prices and a state commission to publish proposed values for drugs, and includes language that would give the state attorney general power to prosecute companies for failing to comply with transparency requirements. Those provisions were scrapped from the House version of the budget bill last month in response to criticisms from the state's biopharma companies (see “Massachusetts House Dilutes Medicaid drug Pricing Bill”)...