Posted on 10/25/2025 8:02:59 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Last Thursday, EMD Serono became the latest pharmaceutical company, after Pfizer and AstraZeneca, to agree to a deal with the Trump Administration to reduce the prices of its drugs. Under these deals the companies must sell their drugs to the federal government at the “Most Favored Nation” price.
Under the Most Favored Nation system, the price pharmaceutical companies can charge for a drug is equal to the lowest price among selected high-income countries. Many of those countries are in Europe, where they have lower drug prices because they impose price controls.
The Trump Administration is trying to address public frustration with high drug prices. However, what Most Favored Nation drug prices mean, in effect, is the federal government will import European price controls. The rub is that it can’t do that without also importing the biggest problem caused by price controls, namely shortages.
For patients, drug shortages can cause anxiety, poor health, and even death. In August 2024 David Allen, a military veteran in the United Kingdom, said he was living “day-to-day” because he was struggling to get a supply of Creon. Allen’s pancreas no longer makes the enzymes needed to digest food, the result of his treatment for pancreatic cancer four years earlier. Creon replaces the missing enzymes. Without it, Allen would end up in the hospital with a feeding tube. Allen said it was depressing and frightening when the Creon starts “running out and you haven’t got a clue where the next supply is going to come from.”
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Pharmaceutical companies have aren’t the most ethical group around.
Nevertheless, the author makes a fair point. Government inference in the free market almost always makes things worse.
More than one Golden Goose has been killed by it.
Yeah sure. America can only have access to medications if they can sodomize America by charging us 10x or 20x s they do other customers. Go sell that story somewhere else.
“Under the Most Favored Nation system, the price pharmaceutical companies can charge for a drug is equal to the lowest price among selected high-income countries. Many of those countries are in Europe, where they have lower drug prices because they impose price control”
Ok… America is the far bigger market and consumes far more of those drugs. If they want those big profits, they can cut off those rich European countries that have price controls and tester their MFN baseline price. Problem solved.
Simple fix. MFNations’ clause only applies for drugs made outside the US.
One to two sentences in the tariff and the issue is moot.
That hardly explains the lack of antibiotics and other drugs, including SALINE, in the past few years. We need to get our heads straight about the dangers of relying on imported drugs.
Ditto. Also, imported drug INGREDIENTS.
RE: America can only have access to medications if they can sodomize America by charging us 10x or 20x s they do other customers.
Bringing a new drug to market is one of the most expensive and risky ventures in business.
If you take Direct R&D costs, Regulatory approval expenses and Costs of failed drugs that never reach market, you’re talking BILLIONS of dollars in expenses just to get a drug to our pharmacy.
Development Time takes 10–15 years from discovery to approval.
Preclinical Phase: 3–6 years, costing $300M–$600M
Success Rate: Only 12% of drugs entering human trials get FDA approval.
Then new drug gets about 20 years of patent protection from the date of filing, but only 8–12 years of market exclusivity after FDA approval due to the long development timeline. After that, the drug becomes GENERIC and the company that developed the drug loses its profit opportunity.
This exclusivity period is when the company can charge premium prices and recoup its R&D investment.
The question then becomes— how much should a drug company charge to recoup its costs and expenses without calling them greedy SOBS?
One can’t help but wonder how many of those shortages are among drugs that are really not needed so much by patients but for the drug companies profit margin.
Many of the drugs I see advertise are for ailments which a person had treated when symptoms flared up and otherwise managed with non medical or OTC treatments. Now they are treated on a more regular basis with very powerful and expensive medications that pretty much destroy the immune system.
I understand seeking a more guaranteed relief from diseases that can be very disabling when they flares up. My criticism is aimed at the drug companies trying to create some sort of panic over drug shortages.
Maybe, just MAYBE, they will stop creating designer drugs for things no one has ever heard of, drugs to treat the problems caused by their designer drugs, and STOP the endless TV commercials pushing drugs for generic symptoms that people with mental disorders get from the doctors PAID to push these designer drugs.
But we have drug shortages now.
Yup. We’re done subsidizing the rest of the planet’s price controls.
It’ll take some time to work out the kinks, but we will.
Folks need to ask themselves how much our republic is worth to them.
Then suck it up and put their money where mouths are.
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