Study Estimates Which Drugs Will Be in Medicare’s Price-Negotiation Crosshairs From 2026-2028

Medicare will likely focus on 38 Part D and two Part B drugs in the first three years of Medicare drug price negotiation — a provision of the Inflation Reduction Act — and these drugs combined accounted for $67.4 billion in gross Medicare spending in 2020, according to a study published in the Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy. The authors identified 40 drugs expected to be negotiated by CMS for 2026-2028 based on “drug age, drug or biologic status, orphan drug status, Part B and Part D gross spending in 2020, and estimates of when a drug will be subject to generic or biosimilar competition.”

The 10 drugs likely to be selected for negotiation in 2026, which include several anticoagulants and cancer therapies, accounted for $33.7 billion of Medicare Part D gross spending as of 2020. The majority of insured people under Medicare formularies have plans that put these drugs under the preferred/preferred (prior authorization and/or step therapy) tier and covered/covered (PA/ST) tiers, according to data from MMIT Analytics. (MMIT is AIS Health’s parent company.) Biden administration officials said that the first 10 drugs selected for negotiation will officially be announced on Sept. 1, 2023.

© 2025 MMIT
Jinghong Chen

Jinghong Chen Reporter

Jinghong has been producing infographics and data stories on employer-sponsored insurance, public health insurance programs and prescription drug coverage for AIS Health’s Health Plan Weekly and Radar on Drug Benefits since 2018. She also manages AIS Health’s annual executive compensation database for top insurers and Blue Cross and Blue Shield affiliates. Before joining AIS Health, she interned at WBEZ, Al Jazeera English and The New York Times Chinese. She graduated from Missouri School of Journalism with a focus on data journalism and international reporting.

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