A federal appeals court has revived a legal challenge to the first-ever U.S. law requiring pharmaceutical companies to negotiate drug prices with Medicare, the government’s health insurance program that covers 66 million people.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Sept. 20 reversed an earlier decision from a federal judge.
U.S. District Judge David Ezra ruled in February that plaintiffs in the case either lacked standing or were not based in Texas and threw out the challenge. The lawsuit argued that the program, which was implemented by the Inflation Reduction Act and forces manufacturers to deal with the government or face escalating fines, violated the U.S. Constitution by giving too much power to federal regulators and imposing excessive fines on companies that refuse to participate….