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The Biden administration unveiled the next 15 drugs that will undergo Medicare negotiations Friday, just a few days before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

Ozempic and Wegovy, Novo Nordisk’s GLP-1 drugs that treat diabetes and obesity, are on the list. Astellas Pharma’s prostate cancer drug, Xtandi, is also on the list — alongside AstraZeneca’s cancer treatment Calquence, GSK’s chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) drug Breo Ellipta, and AbbVie’s antipsychotic medication Vraylar.

“Last year we proved that negotiating for lower drug prices works,” noted HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra in a statement. “Now we plan to build on that record by negotiating for lower prices for 15 additional important drugs for seniors.”

The full list of 15 drugs is below:

• Ozempic; Rybelsus; Wegovy 
• Trelegy Ellipta 
• Xtandi
• Pomalyst
• Ibrance
• Ofev
• Linzess
• Calquence
• Austedo; Austedo XR 
• Breo Ellipta 
• Tradjenta
• Xifaxan
• Vraylar
• Janumet; Janumet XR 
• Otezla

The 15 drugs will be part of the second round of Medicare drug negotiations, a provision that was signed into law in 2022 under the Inflation Reduction Act with the goal of lowering drug costs.

The first round, which kicked off in 2023, resulted in 10 drugs — including Merck’s Januvia, AstraZeneca’s Farxiga, and Johnson & Johnson’s Stelara — seeing their fair maximum prices lowered by up to 79%. The first round of new drug prices will take effect in January 2026.

The second round — assuming the Medicare negotiations go according to plan under a new administration — will start rolling out this year, with the new prices to take effect in 2027.

HHS noted that it chose the 15 drugs because some 5.3 million people with Medicare Part D used them to treat chronic conditions between November 2023 and October 2024, with the drugs accounting for $41 billion in total gross covered prescription costs during that period.

The announcement comes after several years of increased scrutiny in Congress over high drug prices. Last year, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) led bipartisan lawmakers in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee in questioning Novo CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen over the high cost of Ozempic and Wegovy.

Ozempic costs $969 in the U.S. and $155 in Canada, while Wegovy is priced at $1,349 in the U.S. compared to $137 in Germany.

The implementation of the next round of Medicare negotiations are subject to change depending on how the Trump administration approaches them.

While some Republicans have called for a repeal of the IRA, Trump has generally held populist views on drug pricing — even including on his website that as president, he would tell Big Pharma that “we will only pay the best price they offer to foreign nations, who have been taking advantage of us for so long — the U.S. is tired of getting ripped off.”

It’s possible that Republican lawmakers in Congress may make efforts to repeal the drug negotiation program, or they could attempt to water it down to make it more friendly to pharma, experts noted.

“It’s not clear that Trump has an incentive to remove [the IRTA]; he might actually negotiate lower prices,” said Michael Ciarametaro, a principal at healthcare consultancy Avalere, in a previous interview with MM+M. “From a business standpoint, I would absolutely be planning as if this isn’t going away, because the series of events that need to occur for [an unwinding of the IRA] to happen — a lot of things have to happen, let’s put it that way.”

The selected manufacturers of the next 15 drugs have until February 28 to agree to the negotiations. The federal government will then choose an additional 15 drugs for the third round, and up to 20 more for each round after that.