The most common drugs are stored in case of Trump tariffs

The Trump Administration hasn’t asked for a better price for drugs: Why should U.S. patients foot the bill for global innovation?

After the executive order was announced, PhRMA president and CEO Steve Ubl said in a statement: “To lower costs for Americans, we need to address the real reasons U.S. prices are higher: foreign countries not paying their fair share and middlemen driving up prices for U.S. patients.” He added, “The Administration is right to use trade negotiations to force foreign governments to pay their fair share for medicines. U.S. patients should not foot the bill for global innovation.”

The Inflation Reduction Act gave Medicare new authority to negotiate drug prices, for the first time under the Biden administration. The new lower Medicare prices for the first 10 drugs won’t go into effect until January 2026, but the discounts range from 79% for diabetes drug Januvia to 38% for blood cancer drug Imbruvica. The second batches of drug prices for 15 medicines are being negotiated by the Trump administration.

Trump’s statement sent drugmakers scrambling to figure out whether he was serious, and whether some tariffs would be levied more narrowly, since many parts of the U.S. drug supply chain are fragile, drug shortages are common, and upheaval at the FDA leaves questions about whether its staffing is adequate to inspect factories, where quality problems can lead to supply chain crises.

The new executive order has more than one part. It directs the U.S. Trade Representative and Department of Commerce to take action against “unreasonable and discriminatory policies” that lower drug prices abroad, though it’s not clear what authority the White House has in this regard. It also directs Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to facilitate direct–to-consumer sales that bypass health insurance at lower prices.

Trump said that the US has been subsidizing other countries by paying higher prices.

Patients in the U.S. generally pay more for drugs than patients in other countries, largely because other countries have government health care systems that set prices they are willing to pay. The U.S., by and large, doesn’t set prices, so drug companies have more freedom to see what prices the market here will bear.

In the dim basement of a Salt Lake City pharmacy, hundreds of amber-colored plastic pill bottles lay piled in rows, one man’s defensive wall in a tariffs war.

Jolley bought six months worth of the very expensive bottles, hoping that his business wouldn’t be impacted by the 10% tariffs on imported goods that Trump announced April 2. Now with threats of additional tariffs targeting pharmaceuticals, Jolley worries that costs will soar for the medications that will fill those bottles.

Wosiska said that narrow focused tariffs may work in some cases. For example, while drug manufacturing plants can cost $1 billion and take three to five years to set up, it would be relatively cheap to build a syringe factory — a business American manufacturers abandoned during the COVID-19 pandemic because China was dumping its products here, Wosińska said.

“It’s not like they’re gonna go back and say, well, here’s your 10% bump because of the 10% tariff,” he said. “We will lose more money at a faster rate than we are now because costs are going to go up and then the PBMs are slow in responding.”

Pace said tariffs could be the death knell for the many independent pharmacies that exist on “razor-thin margins” — unless reimbursements rise to keep up with higher costs.

“Big ships don’t change course overnight,” said Robin Feldman, a UC Law San Francisco professor who writes about prescription drug issues. It will take a while to get manufacturing up and running, even if companies promise to bring it home. The key will be to avoid damage to industry and pain to consumers in the process.”

“When they hear that, they will leave China,” he said. The U.S. imported $213 billion worth of medicines in 2024 — from China but also India, Europe and other areas.

Scott and his co-owner of the pharmacy in Little Rock, Ark., said that tariffs are not known at the moment.

Pharmaceuticals Stockpile Most Common Drugs on Chance of Targeted Trump Tariffs: “Pharmacists stockpile most common drugs on chance of targeted Trump tariffs”

“I’ve identified the top 200 generics in my store, and I have basically put 90 days’ worth of those on the shelf just as a starting point,” he said. “Those are the diabetes drugs, the blood pressure medicines, the antibiotics — those things that I know folks will be sicker without.”

Unlike other retailers, pharmacies aren’t allowed to pass on costs to patients. The payments are set by health insurers and pharmacy benefit managers who are largely owned by insurance conglomerates.

“You’ve got real estate in North Texas that’s cheaper than real estate in Shenzhen,” he said at an economic conference April 25 in Washington, referring to a major Chinese chemical manufacturing center.

She said it would be economic suicide for the generic drugmakers to build new factories in the U.S.

The group tries to explain the issues to the officials. “We’re not PhRMA,” Murphy said, referring to the powerful trade group primarily representing makers of brand-name drugs. “I don’t have the resources to go to Mar-a-Lago to talk to the president myself.”

Fresenius Kabi also makes biosimilars, the generic forms of expensive biologic drugs such as Humira and Stelara. The United States is the last developed country where generic drugs can appear on the market because of the more generous patent laws.

John Barkett, a member of the Biden administration’s Domestic Policy Council, said that Europe tends to have more stable contracts with makers of generics than the United States.

Source: Pharmacists stockpile most common drugs on chance of targeted Trump tariffs

Why a Patient Cannot Have Emotional Roller Coasters: A Conversation with Theoretically-Informed Health News at KFF

He wondered if he could solve the problem of caring for his community, but not being subject to the emotional roller coaster that is dispensing hundreds of prescriptions a day and seeing every single one of them be a loss or 12 cents profit.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.