A federal judge on Friday rejected AstraZeneca 's legal challenge to Medicare's new power to negotiate the prices of certain costly prescription drugs with manufacturers. The decision is another win for the Biden administration in a bitter legal fight with the pharmaceutical industry over the constitutionality of those price talks. The opportunity to sell drugs to more than 49 million Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries is a "powerful incentive" for manufacturers to participate in the price talks with the government, Connolly wrote. The ruling comes a month after a federal judge in Texas tossed a separate lawsuit challenging the price talks. On March 7, Bristol Myers Squibb, Novo Nordisk, Novartis and Johnson & Johnson will present their oral arguments to a federal judge in New Jersey in the same hearing.

---

Persons: AstraZeneca, Biden, AstraZeneca's, Colm Connolly, Connolly, Johnson Organizations: U.S . Department of Health, Human Services, Washington , D.C, Manufacturers, Supreme, District, AstraZeneca, Chamber of Commerce, Bristol Myers Squibb, Novo Nordisk, Novartis, Johnson, CNBC PRO Locations: Washington ,, Delaware, Texas, Ohio, New Jersey