The NAM filed an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit in support of PhRMA’s constitutional challenge to California’s Senate Bill 17, a drug pricing law that allows California to control wholly out-of-state prices and directly regulate conduct outside its borders. SB 17 effectively freezes a prescription drug’s wholesale acquisition cost (WAC)—the uniform, nationwide list price, akin to the sticker price for a car— nationwide for 60 days before it can be raised. As the NAM’s brief explains, by freezing a nationally uniform pricing benchmark, SB 17 impermissibly regulates the price of wholly out-of-state drug transactions. Further, upholding SB 17 threatens the success of the national common market by encouraging every state to find and manipulate pricing benchmarks in hopes of influencing downstream prices.
Unfortunately, on July 25, 2022, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's decision, concluding that it did not err in finding that issues of fact exist regarding whether "SB 17's practical effect is to directly regulate transactions in interstate commerce."