AstraZeneca Wins Bid to Quash HHS’s Drug Discount Demand

The Health and Human Services Department violated procedural rules in demanding that AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP provide steeply-discounted medicines through a government program embroiled in litigation, a federal judge ruled.

The Wednesday decision is the latest turn in an ongoing saga between drugmakers and the Biden and Trump administrations over a discount program geared for low-income patients. The U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware vacated and sent back to the HHS a letter notifying AstraZeneca that it must resume discounts it had limited for covered providers that dispense drugs through for-profit pharmacies.

Judge Leonard P. Stark held that the ...