Drug Pricing Plan Faces Industry Gripes as Senate Reconvenes

An attempt on Capitol Hill to reduce skyrocketing US drug costs may undercut its own goal by stripping pharmaceutical companies of incentives for producing blockbuster drugs and their lower-cost counterparts, industry groups and analysts warn.

Congress returns this week to begin weighing in earnest a retooled reconciliation package that would need buy-in from every Democratic senator before advancing. Key to that package is a legislative proposal to drop prescription drug prices, a move that would revive a major piece of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda.

That proposal would require government health plans, including Medicare, to negotiate the prices ...