Drug Price Program Legal Fight Shifts Focus to Property Rights

A recent US Supreme Court ruling on landowner property fees is getting drawn into the fight against a government drug price-setting program as drugmakers seek out additional defense against the negotiation scheme.

Merck & Co. and Bristol Myers Squibb Co. recently advised federal courts on the justices’ April 12 decision in Sheetz v. County of El Dorado in their respective legal battles against the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program.

Sheetz, as they wrote in supplemental authorities, supports their case because it “reiterates the basic proposition that ‘[w]hen the government wants to take private property,’ it ‘must compensate the ...