J&J’s new drug-discount program criticized by hospitals (NYSE:JNJ)

Healthcare suppliers are up in arms in opposition to Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) after the pharma big, on Friday, considerably modified a program below which sure hospitals can get reductions for costly medicine, The Wall Street Journal reported.

According to the WSJ, the corporate has launched a new rebate system for hospitals collaborating within the authorities’s 340B program, by way of which healthcare suppliers serving uninsured and low-income sufferers can get reductions on pricey outpatient medicine.

Citing a letter from JNJ, the Journal mentioned that below the revised program, hospitals must pay full value for JNJ’s blockbuster drugs, Stelara and Xarelto, upfront and later apply for a rebate.

The trade group, the American Hospital Association, was fast to criticize JNJ’s transfer, noting that it’s an “instance of massive drug corporations taking unilateral actions to benefit themselves on the expense of hospitals that take care of America’s most susceptible sufferers.”

The New Brunswick, New Jersey-based firm defended itself, arguing that it was geared toward stopping what it known as “rampant abuse and misuse” of the 340B program.

“To assist the 340B Program higher serve susceptible sufferers, J&J is implementing affordable, customary enterprise practices used throughout different authorities packages and contracts,” an organization spokesperson mentioned.

Xarelto, a blood thinner marketed by JNJ and Bayer (OTCPK:BAYZF) (OTCPK:BAYRY), has already been focused by the federal government as a part of the Medicare value negotiation program launched below the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. Meanwhile, psoriasis remedy Stelara will face low-cost generics within the U.S. subsequent yr.