Speaking of the drug industry winning … about those Senate drug pricing packages 

Major health policy initiatives in two key Senate committees hit roadblocks last week, STAT has learned. The first snag came from Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee, who penned a letter to committee leaders signaling they would oppose bipartisan legislation they feel doesn’t go far enough.   

“Instead of outsourcing negotiations to other countries, the Secretary of HHS should guarantee and enforce reasonable prices” here in the U.S., states the letter, dated July 11 and obtained by STAT. It’s a shot both at President Trump’s proposal to enact an international price index as well as a warning to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the committee’s top Democrat, that his colleagues' eventual goal is empowering Medicare to negotiate for drug prices. The only committee Democrat not to sign the letter, incidentally: Sen. Bob Menendez, who represents the biopharma hotbed of New Jersey.

Meanwhile, three lobbyists and Republican aides confirmed that GOP senators have placed at least 11 “holds” on health-cost legislation currently before the Senate HELP Committee. Republican HELP staffers cast the holdup as a typical part of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s process, though lobbyists said the degree of opposition made it unlikely that the bill could pass a floor vote before the upcoming August recess. The bill currently includes a ban on “spread pricing,” which refers to a PBM tactic to charge more for drugs than it costs to acquire them, and a provision requiring drug companies to justify decisions to hike their prices higher than 10% in a 12-month span.