{"id":140125,"date":"2025-09-30T07:49:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T11:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=140125"},"modified":"2025-09-30T15:52:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T19:52:10","slug":"economist-donald-trump-is-waging-war-on-sky-high-drug-prices-can-he-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=140125","title":{"rendered":"(Economist) Donald Trump is waging war on sky-high drug prices. Can he win?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Big Pharma has a big headache: Donald Trump. Lately drugmakers have had to contend with the American president\u2019s pronouncements on everything from vaccines to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/united-states\/2025\/09\/23\/the-president-is-wrong-on-tylenol\">paracetamol<\/a>. In the coming days the pain is set to intensify. Intent on lowering prices, Mr Trump has given leading pharma firms until September 29th to comply with an executive order to peg their prices to the lowest charged in other rich countries\u2014a rule he calls \u201cmost favoured nation\u201d (<small>MFN<\/small>) pricing. If they do not, he thundered, they will face \u201cevery tool in our arsenal\u201d against \u201cabusive drug pricing\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the same time, the president wants to encourage homegrown manufacturing. He plans to impose a 100% tariff on branded drugs from October 1st, unless their makers are building factories in America. His administration is also pondering additional duties under a law allowing imports to be restricted on national-security grounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As is often the case, the Trumpian diagnosis contains a kernel of truth. Drug prices are indeed higher in America than elsewhere in the rich world. But the president\u2019s two-point prescription upends a model that has long underpinned the highly globalised pharma industry, which could have unintended effects. It could leave Americans with fewer medicines but not cheaper ones, while in other countries drugs could be fewer and dearer. David Ricks of Eli Lilly, the world\u2019s most valuable drugmaker, has warned that\u00a0<small>MFN<\/small>\u00a0pricing risks \u201cthe worst of two worlds\u201d, importing Europe\u2019s sluggish innovation while keeping American prices high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/business\/2025\/09\/28\/donald-trump-is-waging-war-on-sky-high-drug-prices-can-he-win\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">America\u2019s drug prices were more than three times the average in other rich countries in 2022. As a consequence, it coughs up around 70% of global pharmaceutical profits from about half of global sales. This is partly because of how the market is organised <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/eyJHSfPEB3\">https:\/\/t.co\/eyJHSfPEB3<\/a><\/p>&mdash; The Economist (@TheEconomist) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheEconomist\/status\/1972602327337959732?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 29, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Big Pharma has a big headache: Donald Trump. Lately drugmakers have had to contend with the American president\u2019s pronouncements on everything from vaccines to\u00a0paracetamol. In the coming days the pain is set to intensify. Intent on lowering prices, Mr Trump<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=140125\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,209,582,99,149,104,616,91,151,665],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics-politics","category-americau-s-a","category-consumerconsumer-spending","category-drugsdrug-addiction","category-economy","category-health-medicine","category-office-of-the-president","category-personal-finance-investing","category-politics-in-general","category-president-donald-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=140125"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140130,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140125\/revisions\/140130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=140125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=140125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=140125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}