Company: ATRA
Filing Date: 2025-03-07
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-035507
Chunk: 49

Company: Atara Biotherapeutics, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-03-07
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 49
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 with respect to coverage and reimbursement for our drug products. 

These third party payors are increasingly challenging the prices charged for medical products and services and imposing controls to manage costs. The containment of healthcare costs has become a priority of federal and state governments and the prices of drugs have been a focus in this effort. Governments have shown significant interest in implementing cost-containment programs, including price controls, restrictions on reimbursement and requirements for substitution of generic products. In the U.S. there have been several Congressional inquiries and proposed and enacted federal and state legislation designed to, among other things, bring more transparency to drug pricing, review the relationship between pricing and manufacturer patient programs, reduce the cost of drugs under Medicare, and reform government program reimbursement methodologies for drugs. For example, included in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 were several drug price reporting and transparency measures, such as a new requirement for certain Medicare plans to develop tools to display Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit information in real time and for group and health insurance issuers to report information on pharmacy benefit and drug costs to the Secretaries of the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and the Treasury. In August 2022, former President Biden signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA), which implements substantial changes to the Medicare program, including drug pricing reforms and changes to the Medicare Part D benefit design. Among other reforms, the IRA imposes inflation rebates on drug manufacturers for products reimbursed under Medicare Parts B and D if the prices of those products increase faster than inflation; implements changes to the Medicare Part D benefit that, beginning in 2025, will cap benefit annual out-of-pocket spending at $2,000 while imposing new discount obligations for pharmaceutical manufacturers; and, beginning in 2026, establishes a “maximum fair price” for a fixed number of pharmaceutical and biological products covered under Medicare Parts B and D following a price negotiation process with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). CMS has also taken steps to implement the IRA, including: releasing the negotiated maximum prices, which will be effective in 2026, for the first ten drugs that were subject to the IRA’s negotiation process, releasing quarterly lists of Medicare Part B products that are subject to adjusted coinsurance rates based on the inflationary rebate provisions of the IRA, and announcing a list of fifteen additional drugs that will be subject to price negotiations during 2025. While it remains to be seen how the drug pricing provisions imposed by the IRA will affect the broader pharmaceutical industry, several pharmaceutical manufacturers