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If Democrats are spoiling for a 2020 fight focused on anything besides impeaching President Trump, consider this week’s vote on a massive drug pricing package their opening salvo. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “Lower Drug Costs Now” Act, a sweeping bill that pledges to lower consumer drug costs by 50%, includes ideas long touted by progressives in Washington: It would let Medicare directly negotiate the price of at least 50 drugs per year and it would cap U.S. drug payments based on costs in other developed countries. (Facher, 12/10)

House Democratic leadership on Tuesday clinched a deal to win progressive leaders’ support for a sweeping drug pricing bill that could clear its path for passage in the full House on Thursday. The pact between Speaker Nancy Pelosi and progressive leaders includes an agreement to expand the government’s authority to directly negotiate drug prices under the legislation, ultimately requiring federal officials to hammer out the cost of at least 50 medicines a year, from the original 35. (Cancryn and Ferris, 12/10)

Those changes are to increase the minimum number of drugs subject to negotiation under the bill from 35 to 50 and to restore the implementation of Jayapal’s amendment, which would extend protections against drug price spikes to people on employer-sponsored health insurance plans, not just those on Medicare. The deal prevents a showdown on Thursday when the bill will come to the floor for a vote. Progressive leaders had been contemplating a rare full-scale rebellion against Pelosi, thinking of blocking a vote on the drug pricing bill by trying to vote down a procedural motion. (Sullivan, 12/10)

The House will vote this week on Democrats’ signature drug pricing bill, H.R. 3, which would direct Medicare to negotiate the price of certain high cost drugs. Republicans also introduced their own competing bill Monday afternoon. The House bill is likely to pass resoundingly, but then go nowhere in the Senate. Republicans’ competing bill is unlikely to gain much, if any, Democratic support, but the bill is good messaging from a party that has been criticized in the past for being too cozy with drug makers. (Florko, 12/10)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's bill that would let Medicare negotiate prices with drug companies would save the government $456 billion over ten years, according to an analysis released Tuesday. The bill, which will get a vote on the House floor this week, would require that federal health officials negotiate the prices of at least 35 brand-name drugs per year. (Hellmann, 12/10)

Private equity investors are lobbying against Nancy Pelosi’s sweeping drug pricing bill, telling her legislative aides in a series of private meetings in recent weeks that the plan would dry up financing for small biotech companies. A group of venture capitalists, including Peter Kolchinsky of RA Capital Management, Johannes Fruehauf of BioInnovation Capital and Sara Nayeem of New Enterprise Associates, met with Pelosi’s staff as well as moderate House and Senate Democrats on Oct. 29 to discuss their concerns. The investors have had follow-up meetings since, according to John Stanford, executive director of venture capital advocacy group Incubate and attended the meetings. (Lovelace, 12/10)