AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, a global pharmaceutical company, is joining a lawsuit against the state of South Dakota over a new law.
The suit centers around SB 154, a law that prohibits drugmakers participating in the federal 340B program from interfering with entities that benefit from it.
340B allows health care entities enrolled in Medicaid and Medicare, like hospitals, to sell drugs at a higher price than they paid. Advocates say that profit margin can improve health care and conditions for low-income patients.
Some hospitals sell the discounted drugs to local, for-profit pharmacies ineligible under the 340B program.
As a result, some pharmaceutical companies added restrictions on who they would disperse the drugs to. SB 154 made that illegal.
AstraZeneca is claiming the new law preempts federal patent law on their products, is unconstitutional under the federal Contracts Clause and under the federal Takings clause.
Similar claims were made AbbVie, another pharmaceutical company, earlier this year.
