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Appeals Court Declines to Rehear Maryland Drug Pricing Challenge
This week, a federal appeals court declined to hear a petition to rehear a challenge by the Association for Accessible Medicines to a Maryland drug pricing law.
This week, a federal appeals court declined to hear a petition to rehear a challenge by the Association for Accessible Medicines (AAM) to a Maryland drug pricing law, letting the previous ruling stand.
In late April, Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh requested that a full federal appeals court rehear the case, saying, “The resolution of this appeal will substantially affect the responses of state governments to a problem with both fiscal and public health dimensions: the rapidly rising cost of prescription drugs.”
The law, passed in 2017 and aimed at combatting increases in the pricing of generic medicines, was deemed unconstitutional in April 2018. The law gave the attorney general the authority to review price information about generic drugs. If the state’s lawyers could show that prices were increasing too steeply, they could seek to order the prices reduced, or issue fines to the drug companies.
AAM filed a suit against the state in a US district court in Maryland last year, alleging that the bill grants the state “unprecedented powers to regulate the national pharmaceutical market, violating the [US] Constitution and posing harm to vulnerable patient communities.”
In reaching the decision to decline rehearing the case, 9 of the 4th Circuit’s judges voted against, 3 judges voted in favor, and 2 judges did not vote.
One of the judges who voted in favor of rehearing the case before the full court, Judge James A. Wynn Jr., wrote that the opinion of the 3-judge panel “materially encroaches” on the state’s ability to pass laws that “protect the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens.”
“At a minimum,” he wrote, the case deserves “the careful deliberation of this entire Court.”
Upon learning that the court had denied rehearing the case, Raquel Coombs, a spokeswoman for the office of the attorney general said, “We are reviewing the decision to determine our next steps.”
According to AAM, Illinois and Louisiana are currently considering legislation modeled after Maryland’s law.
Escaping the Void: All Things Biosimilars With Craig & G
May 4th 2025To close out the Festival of Biologics, Craig Burton and Giuseppe Randazzo from the Association for Accessible Medicines and the Biosimilars Council tackle the current biosimilar landscape and how the industry can emerge from the "biosimilar void."
Eye on Pharma: Interchangeability Labels and Expanded Biosimilar Partnerships
May 29th 2025The FDA designates 2 biosimilars as interchangeable, enhancing access to treatments for inflammatory diseases and multiple sclerosis, while 2 other companies expand their biosimilar partnership to include more products.
Will the FTC Be More PBM-Friendly Under a Second Trump Administration?
February 23rd 2025On this episode of Not So Different, we explore the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) second interim report on pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) with Joe Wisniewski from Turquoise Health, discussing key issues like preferential reimbursement, drug pricing transparency, biosimilars, shifting regulations, and how a second Trump administration could reshape PBM practices.
