Bristol-Myers sues, calls Inflation Reduction Act provisions ‘unconstitutional’

Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY) has sued the U.S. Secretary of Health & Human Services, the Administrator of Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and both agencies in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, alleging that the Medicare “Drug Price Negotiation Program” in the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, is “unconstitutional.” In its lawsuit, the company alleges: “Most obviously, the Fifth Amendment requires the Government to pay ‘just compensation’ if it takes private ‘property’ for public use. This fundamental protection prevents Medicare from outright seizing a portion of each pharmaceutical company’s inventory. But compelling the transfer of the inventory at a unilaterally dictated discount is no different, either functionally or legally… That is not the only constitutional infirmity in the way the IRA is structured. Rather than candidly admitting to the American people that it imposed mandatory price controls and forced sales, Congress filtered the IRA’s requirements through a facade of ‘agreements’ through which pharmaceutical manufacturers must convey that they ‘agree’ to HHS’s dictated prices and that they ‘agree’ that such prices are the ‘the maximum fair price(s)’ for their medicines… But, under the First Amendment, the Government cannot conscript citizens (including businesses) to parrot its preferred political messaging.” Drugmaking peer Merck (MRK) has also sued the Department of Health and Human Services, also calling Medicare’s new powers to reduce drug prices under the Inflation Reduction Act unconstitutional.