Raphael Stevens

The Biden administration released prices for the first 10 prescription drugs that were subject to landmark negotiations with Medicare.
The government estimates that the new prices could produce $6 billion in net savings for Medicare in 2026 alone, based on data from 2023.
It is a milestone in a controversial process that aims to make costly medications more affordable for older Americans, a policy the pharmaceutical industry has opposed.
It comes one day before the second anniversary of President Joe Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act.

Activists protest the price of prescription drug costs in front of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services building in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 6, 2022.
Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images

The Biden administration on Thursday released prices for the first 10 prescription drugs that were subject to landmark negotiations between drugmakers and Medicare, a milestone in a controversial process that aims to make costly medications more affordable for older Americans. 
The government estimates that the new negotiated prices for the medications will lead to around $6 billion in net savings for the Medicare program in 2026 alone when they officially go into effect, or 22% net savings overall. That is based on the estimated savings the prices would have produced if they were in effect in 2023, senior administration officials told reporters on Wednesday.

The Biden administration also expects the new prices to save Medicare enrollees $1.5 billion in out-of-pocket costs in 2026 alone.
“For so many people, being able to afford these drugs will mean the difference between debilitating illness and living full lives,” Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told reporters. “These negotiated prices. They’re not just about costs. They are about helping to make sure that your father, your grandfather or you can live longer, healthier.”
It comes one day before the second anniversary of President Joe Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act, which gave Medicare the power to directly hash out drug prices with manufacturers for the first time in the federal program’s nearly 60-year history.
Here are the negotiated prices for a 30-day supply of the 10 drugs, along with their list prices based on 2023 prescription fills, according to a Biden administration fact sheet Thursday.
What Medicare and beneficiaries pay for a drug is often much less than the list price, which is the what a wholesaler, distributor or other direct purchaser paid a manufacturer for a medication before any discounts.

Eliquis, made by Bristol Myers Squibb – $231.00 negotiated price, $521 list price
Jardiance, made by Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly – $197.00 negotiated price, $573.00 list price
Xarelto, made by Johnson & Johnson – $197.00 negotiated price, $517.00 list price
Januvia, made by Merck – $113.00 negotiated price, $527.00 list price
Farxiga, made by AstraZeneca – $178.50 negotiated price, $556.00 list price
Entresto, made by Novartis – $295.00 negotiated price, $628.00 list price
Enbrel, made by Amgen – $2,355.00 negotiated price, $7,106.00 list price
Imbruvica, made by AbbVie and J&J – $9,319.00 negotiated price, $14,934.00 list price
Stelara, made by J&J – $4,695.00 negotiated price, $13,836.00 list price
Fiasp and NovoLog, made by Novo Nordisk – $119.00 negotiated price, $495.00 list price

Notably, it is difficult to compare the new negotiated price of a drug with its current list price. That’s because most of the 10 medications are already subject to significant rebates after private negotiations with Medicare Part D plans.
But the heavily rebated net price that Part D plans pay for a given drug is unknown since those talks are confidential, according to Leigh Purvis, a prescription drug policy principal with AARP Public Policy Institute. AARP, the influential lobby group that represents people older than 50, has advocated for Medicare’s new negotiation powers.
“So that’s I think what people are going to be trying to get to – are these negotiated prices lower than the net prices that Medicare Part D were already paying?” Purvis told CNBC. “And so that’s the comparison that people are looking for. Now, recognizing that rebates are confidential, it’s going to be a tough ask.”
A senior administration official confirmed that a direct comparison between the negotiated prices and net prices paid by Medicare is “commercially confidential information.”
The administration unveiled the first set of medications selected for the price talks in August 2023, kicking off a nearly year-long negotiation period that ended at the beginning of the month.
The final prices give drugmakers, which fiercely oppose the policy, a glimpse of how much revenue they could expect to lose over the next few years. It also sets a precedent for the additional rounds of Medicare drug price negotiations, which will kick off in 2025 and beyond. 

First 10 drugs subject to Medicare price negotiations

Eliquis, made by Bristol Myers Squibb, is used to prevent blood clotting to reduce the risk of stroke. 
Jardiance, made by Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly, is used to lower blood sugar for people with Type 2 diabetes. 
Xarelto, made by Johnson & Johnson, is used to prevent blood clotting, to reduce the risk of stroke.
Januvia, made by Merck, is used to lower blood sugar for people with Type 2 diabetes.
Farxiga, made by AstraZeneca, is used to treat Type 2 diabetes, heart failure and chronic kidney disease. 
Entresto, made by Novartis, is used to treat certain types of heart failure.
Enbrel, made by Amgen, is used to treat autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. 
Imbruvica, made by AbbVie and J&J, is used to treat different types of blood cancers. 
Stelara, made by Janssen, is used to treat autoimmune diseases such as Crohn’s disease.
Fiasp and NovoLog, insulins made by Novo Nordisk.

In a statement Thursday, President Joe Biden called the new negotiated prices a “historic milestone” made possible because of the Inflation Reduction Act. He specifically touted Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote for the law in the Senate in 2022.
Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, said in a statement that she was proud to cast that deciding vote, adding there is more work to be done to lower health-care costs for Americans.
“Today’s announcement will be lifechanging for so many of our loved ones across the nation, and we are not stopping here,” Harris said in a statement Thursday, noting that additional prescription drugs will be selected for future rounds of negotiations.
But Steve Ubl, the CEO of the pharmaceutical industry’s biggest lobbying group, PhRMA, said in a statement Thursday there are “no assurances patients will see lower out-of-pocket costs because the law did nothing to rein in abuses by insurance companies and [drug supply chain middlemen] who ultimately decide what medicines are covered and what patients pay at the pharmacy.”
He added that the price talks could result in fewer treatments for cancer, mental health, rare diseases and other conditions because it “fundamentally alters” the incentives for drug development.
The Biden administration released the so-called maximum fair price of each drug, the highest price that a Medicare Part D plan sponsor or beneficiary can pay for the treatment. Medicare Part D plans, which are administered by private insurers, cover prescription medications that older Americans fill at retail pharmacies.
The lengthy negotiation process involved months of back-and-forth price offers between companies and Medicare, which determined its initial offer for each medication using sales volume data, federal financial support for the drug’s development and data on pending or approved patent applications and exclusivities, among other information.

President Joe Biden signs the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 at the White House on Aug. 16, 2022.
Mandel Ngan | Afp | Getty Images

The negotiations are the centerpiece of the Biden administration’s efforts to rein in the rising cost of medications in the U.S. Some congressional Democrats and consumer advocates have long pushed for the change, as many seniors around the country struggle to afford care.
The price talks are expected to save money for people enrolled in Medicare, who take an average of four to five prescription drugs a month. Almost 10% of Medicare enrollees ages 65 and older, and 20% of those under 65, report challenges in affording drugs, a senior administration official told reporters last year. 
But the pharmaceutical industry views the process as a threat to its revenue growth, profits and drug innovation. Several drugmakers and trade groups filed lawsuits last year seeking to derail the negotiations and declare them unconstitutional. 
Suits brought by Merck and Novartis against the price talks are awaiting decisions from district courts. Each case brings claims that overlap with suits from Novo Nordisk, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb and J&J that have been rejected in recent months.

Drugmaker reactions

Drugmakers said they still strongly oppose what many of them called “government price setting” through the Inflation Reduction Act. 
“The price setting provision of the Inflation Reduction Act does nothing to benefit patients and will only harm the scientific innovation that makes the development of life-changing treatments possible,” a spokesperson for AbbVie said in a statement Thursday.
But the spokesperson said the price that was set for Imbruvica is within the range the company had expected. 
A spokesperson for J&J similarly contended that U.S. patients will see higher costs, restricted access and fewer medicines as a result of the negotiations. 
Bristol Myers Squibb is the only company so far to release specific information on the expected financial impact of the new negotiated prices. 
In a release on its website, the company said it expects Eliquis revenue in 2026 to come in between $8.5 billion and 10.5 billion in the U.S., and between $10.5 billion to $12.5 billion worldwide. Bristol Myers anticipates Eliquis sales in 2027 will be between $8 billion and $10 billion in the U.S. and $8.5 billion to $11 billion worldwide. 
In 2023, Eliquis booked $8.59 billion in revenue in the U.S. and $12.21 billion in sales worldwide, according to a company release.
The company noted that Eliquis is slated to lose patent exclusivity and face competition from cheaper generic drugs in the U.S. starting on April 1, 2028. The blood thinner also faces patent expirations in certain EU markets in 2026.

George Frey | Reuters

A spokesperson for Novo Nordisk said that while its lawsuit against the price talks progresses, the company will make sure the new negotiated price is available to Medicare beneficiaries in 2026. The spokesperson also noted that rejecting the new prices would have resulted in steep penalties for the Danish drugmaker. 
If a drugmaker declines to negotiate with Medicare, it must either pay an excise tax of up to 95% of its medication’s U.S. sales or pull all of its products from the Medicare and Medicaid markets.
An AstraZeneca spokesperson similarly said “walking away is not an option.” The company accepted the negotiated price because it believes “that everyone who needs our medicines should have access to them.”
The companies’ 10 drugs are among the top 50 with the highest spending for Medicare Part D.
The 10 medicines accounted for $50.5 billion, or about 20%, of total Part D prescription drug costs from June 1, 2022, to May 31, 2023, according to CMS. In 2022, 9 million seniors spent $3.4 billion out of pocket on the 10 drugs, and some paid more than $6,000 per year for just one of the medications on the list, according to the Biden administration.
The medications have been on the market for at least seven years without generic competitors, or 11 years in the case of biological products such as vaccines. 
Medicare covers roughly 66 million people in the U.S., and 50.5 million patients are enrolled in Part D plans, according to 2023 data from health policy research organization KFF.

What happens next?

CMS has until March next year to publish an explanation for the negotiated prices for each drug. Those new prices will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2026. 
By February 2025, the Biden administration will also unveil up to 15 more drugs that will be subject to the next round of price talks, with agreed-upon prices going into effect in 2027. Drugmakers will have until the end of that month to decide whether to participate in the program. 
After that second round, CMS can negotiate prices for another 15 drugs that will go into effect in 2028. The number rises to 20 negotiated medications a year starting in 2029.
“Sometimes I think people get caught up in the fact that their drug isn’t on the list, but it will be on the list at some point in the future if they’re taking a drug that’s resulting in high costs,” Purvis said. 
CMS will only select Medicare Part D drugs for the medicines covered by the first two years of negotiations. It will add more specialized drugs covered by Medicare Part B, which are typically administered by doctors, in 2028. 
Notably, Harris would likely try to expand the scope of negotiations if elected president, experts told CNBC. 
Purvis emphasized that Medicare is “only going to get better at this process as it moves forward.”
“We do expect billions of dollars in savings to taxpayers to start flowing as this negotiation program gets off the ground and Medicare gets better at the drug negotiation process,” she told CNBC.  More

Walmart beat quarterly earnings and revenue expectations.
The discounter raised its full-year outlook on strength in the first half of the year and said it has seen steady consumer health, but was more cautious about the second half.
As the largest U.S. retailer, Walmart can give particularly strong insight into the health of consumers and the economy.

Walmart raised its forecast for the year on Thursday, as quarterly revenue grew nearly 5%, the company’s stores and website drew more visits and sales outside the grocery department improved. 
The discounter beat Wall Street’s expectations for sales and profits, and its shares climbed about 6% in premarket trading.

Walmart said it now expects sales to rise by 3.75% to 4.75% for the full year, and adjusted earnings to come in between $2.35 and $2.43 per share. It previously said it expected to be on the high end or slightly above its initial full-year guidance, which called for net sales growth of 3% to 4% and adjusted earnings per share of between $2.23 and $2.37.
While Walmart raised its outlook, its projected second half of the year may not be as strong as Wall Street anticipated. The retailer expects adjusted earnings of 51 to 52 cents per share in the third quarter, below analysts’ expectations of 54 cents. Analysts also expected adjusted earnings of $2.43 per share for the year — the highest point of Walmart’s guidance.
In an interview with CNBC, Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said the company’s brighter outlook reflects strength in the first half of the year. He said Walmart decided against raising expectations for the back half of the year, especially since the 2024 election, unrest in the Middle East and other dynamics may influence consumer sentiment.
“In this environment, it’s responsible or prudent to be a little bit guarded with the outlook, but we’re not projecting a recession,” he said.
He said Walmart has not noticed a shift in consumer behavior. He said every month of the quarter was “relatively consistent” and the back-to-school season “is off to a pretty good start.” 

“We see, among our members and customers, that they remain choiceful, discerning, value-seeking, focusing on things like essentials rather than discretionary items, but importantly, we don’t see any additional fraying of consumer health,” Rainey said.
Walmart saw another promising indicator: Sales of general merchandise, such as lawn and garden supplies, were positive for the first time in 11 quarters. He said those sales were up only slightly, but were an “encouraging sign for us.”
Here’s what the discounter reported for the fiscal second quarter compared with what Wall Street expected, according to a survey of analysts by LSEG:

Earnings per share: 67 cents adjusted vs. 65 cents expected
Revenue: $169.34 billion vs. $168.63 billion

Walmart’s net income dropped to $4.5 billion, or 56 cents per share, in the three-month period that ended July 31, compared with $7.89 billion, or 97 cents per share, in the year-ago period.
Revenue rose from $161.63 billion in the year-ago quarter. 

Comparable sales for Walmart U.S. rose 4.2% in the second quarter, excluding fuel, compared with the year-ago period, which topped analysts’ expectations. The industry metric includes sales from stores and clubs open for at least a year.
At Sam’s Club, comparable sales rose 5.2%, excluding fuel, in line with analysts’ expectations.

E-commerce sales jumped 21% globally and 22% in the U.S.
Walmart’s customers in the U.S. visited the company’s stores and website more and spent slightly more during the quarter than they did in the year-ago period. Transactions rose 3.6% and average ticket was up 0.6% compared with the year-ago quarter.
Walmart provided the latest window into the health of American households and the outlook for the broader economy as investors and economists seek clarity.

As the nation’s largest retailer, Walmart is uniquely positioned to offer insights into where the consumer is spending and scrimping. The company’s reputation for value has boosted sales over the past two years, as inflation drove more higher-income shoppers to its stores and website.
Inflation has moderated and returned to historic levels, according to July data from the U.S. Department of Labor. The consumer price index, which measures prices of a broad mix of goods and services, rose 2.9% last month compared to a year earlier. That is the lowest level since March of 2021.
On the campaign trail, many politicians — including presidential candidates Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump — have spoken about how they will take on the higher prices of everyday items, including groceries. Harris, in particular, has blamed companies for “price gouging.”
Walmart, for its part, said it is pushing vendors to reduce prices. Rainey said that’s long been a focus for the company.
He told CNBC that inflation was flat for Walmart year over year, so its sales growth was driven by selling more units rather than higher prices. He said it had 7,200 “rollbacks,” or short-term deals on items, in the quarter, including a 35% increase in the number of rollbacks on food.
Yet prices are hovering much higher than pre-pandemic, frustrating and stretching consumers. A jobs report from the Labor Department early this month also raised concerns and prompted a sharp stock market selloff, as jobs growth slowed and the unemployment rate rose more than expected.
Some companies’ earnings reports have added to worries about the economy. Home Depot on Tuesday beat quarterly expectations for earnings and revenue, but warned of slow sales in the back half of the year and consumer caution, even among its more middle- and upper-income customer base.
Along with attracting inflation-weary shoppers, Walmart has made its own moves to drive growth. It has looked outside of traditional retail channels, as it has sought to add more sellers to its third-party marketplace, sell more advertisements and attract more members to its subscription service, Walmart+. It also launched a new grocery brand, Bettergoods, with most items under $5 — including meal solutions like frozen pizzas and chicken wings.
Rainey said Walmart is likely benefitting as customers look for cheaper alternatives to fast food. He referred to inflation data, which came out this week and showed that the gap in price between food at home and food away from home continues to grow.
“It stands to reason that customers are shifting to prepare more meals at home versus versus eating out,” he said.
Shares of Walmart closed Wednesday at $68.66. So far this year, the company’s stock is up nearly 31%, outpacing the approximately 14% gains of the S&P 500.

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Lockheed Martin is buying Terran Orbital, the company announced Thursday.
The agreement will see Lockheed acquire Terran at an enterprise valuation of nearly $450 million, below Lockheed’s previous bid in March.
Expected to close in the fourth quarter, the deal would help Terran dodge a cash-and-debt cliff.

Terran Orbital’s banner above the New York Stock Exchange on March 28, 2022.
Terran Orbital

Lockheed Martin is buying Terran Orbital, the company announced Thursday, with the defense giant reaching a deal to take the struggling spacecraft manufacturer private.
The agreement will see Lockheed acquire Terran at an enterprise valuation of nearly $450 million, below Lockheeed’s previous bid of nearly $600 million in March.

Lockheed would acquire Terran Orbital’s outstanding common stock at 25 cents a share in cash. Additionally, Lockheed will pay off Terran’s debt and established a $30 million capital facility to keep the company going while the deal closes.
Terran’s stock closed at 40 cents a share on Wednesday.
Expected to close in the fourth quarter, the deal would help Terran dodge a cash-and-debt cliff that the company is staring down. Terran’s cash reserves were less than $15 million at the end of July, it reported in a filing on Monday, and it also has about $300 million in debt.

Read more CNBC space news

The small spacecraft maker went public via a special purpose acquisition company in early 2022 at a $1.8 billion valuation. Like several other space stocks that debuted in the past few years, the yet-unprofitable company has been hit hard by the shifting risk environment in the market.
Lockheed Martin is already a significant stakeholder in Terran Orbital, having bought in during the company’s SPAC process and again in late 2022. Lockheed Martin is also an important customer for Terran, making up 70% of Terran’s $30.4 million in revenue during the second quarter.

Terran signed a blockbuster spacecraft production contract 18 months ago from prospective satellite communications operator Rivada Space Networks, worth $2.4 billion for 300 satellites. But the deal has yet to drive meaningful funds for Terran, which reported that it recognized just $6.2 million from the Rivada agreement in the first half of this year.
On Monday, Terran said it was removing the Rivada deal from its total contract backlog — which reduced the backlog of orders by 88%, from $2.7 billion to $312.7 million. Of its non-Rivada orders, 91% of Terran’s contracts are “programs associated with Lockheed Martin.” More