Appeals court upholds dismissal of US Chamber challenge to Medicare negotiation

The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld a lower court's ruling to dismiss a challenge to the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program brought by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, finding once again that the parties involved did not have standing to sue.

Almost exactly one year ago, a federal judge dismissed the Chamber's lawsuit challenging the Medicare negotiation program established through the Inflation Reduction Act.

The judge found that the other plaintiffs included in the suit — the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and the Michigan Chamber of Commerce — lacked standing to sue on behalf of their members, though it said the U.S. Chamber had standing on its own if it filed a new suit in a new venue.

The appeals court largely agreed with the district court's ruling while also clarifying some points that were made.

While the court agreed that the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce's interests are not relevant to the case, it made clear that national organizations are not the only entities that can sue over federal laws that can impact U.S. states and regions.

The district court last year had also found that the pharmaceutical company AbbVie and its subsidiary Pharmacyclics had no direct connections to the business climate of Dayton, Ohio, for the chamber to sue on its behalf.

But the appeals court clarified that businesses often have interests in places where they aren't headquartered, so a lack of such geographic ties should not be considered "fatal" to establishing standing.

In this case, however, the lack of headquarters combined with a "lack of any direct connection between the Dayton Chamber’s purpose" was enough to disprove associational standing for both entities.

Finding again that the Dayton Chamber and the Ohio Chamber lacked standing to sue, the appeals court found that the district court "did not err" in its initial ruling.

"And because Plaintiffs did not identify an appropriate venue outside of Ohio that the case could be transferred to if the Dayton Chamber and the Ohio Chamber lacked standing, the district court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing this case for lack of proper venue," the appeals court found.

Having lost at the appellate court level, the U.S. Chamber could choose to appeal the case to the Supreme Court. The Hill has reached out to the U.S. Chamber for comment.

The advocacy group Patients For Affordable Drugs applauded the ruling.

“This decision marks the 10th court ruling in favor of patients and against the pharmaceutical industry’s desperate legal attacks on the overwhelmingly popular Medicare Negotiation Program, which in January will deliver lower prices to more than 9 million patients across the nation," Merith Basey, the group's executive director, said in a statement.

"Pharma is spending millions in an attempt to protect its full monopoly pricing power at the expense of patients, but the courts keep rejecting the industry’s arguments," Basey added. "By upholding the lower court’s decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals is siding with American patients who deserve a much better deal against an industry that continues to try to hold them hostage.”