Exempting Rare Disease Drugs Would Erase Most Savings from a Medicare Price Pilot, Analysis Finds

An elderly Medicare beneficiary discusses prescription drug costs with a pharmacist at a pharmacy counter. (Credit: Editorial Illustration via AI)

Carving rare disease treatments out of a new Medicare drug pricing pilot would eliminate much of the savings the program is projected to produce on retail medications, according to a new analysis by a Harvard University researcher.

The finding lands while biotech companies lobby the administration for exactly that exemption. STAT reports that excluding rare disease treatments would wipe out savings from retail drugs under the pilots at issue: the Global Benchmark for Efficient Drug Pricing, known as GLOBE, and Guarding U.S. Medicare Against Rising Drug Costs, known as GUARD. The retail-drug savings estimate applies specifically to GUARD, which covers Part D.