The IRA, BMS’ Big Cuts, First WHIM Approval

J&J and BMS’ challenges to Medicare drug price negotiations shut down in federal court less than a week after BMS announced it was laying off more than 2,000 employees. 

 

Earlier this week, a federal judge in New Jersey added fuel to the ongoing legal battle between Big Pharma and the government over the Inflation Reduction Act. The judge on Monday dismissed claims from Johnson & Johnson and Bristol Myers Squibb that Medicare’s drug price negotiations program is unconstitutional.  

 

The big news last week also involved BMS, which announced it will let go 2,200 people by the end of 2024 in what the company is calling a “strategic productivity initiative.” Layoffs are already underway in New Jersey, California and elsewhere, and may be related to the pharma giant’s recent M&A spending spree.  

Elsewhere around the industry, Q1 earnings season rolls on, with Sanofi and AstraZeneca also announcing cuts to their pipeline, while Gilead, Merck, and Lilly all touted numbers that exceeded expectations. 

Finally, on the regulatory front, X4 Pharmaceuticals got a win this week with the approval of its first commercial drug—and the first therapy for an ultra-rare disease called WHIM.