Pharmaceuticals face 100% tariffs in US – unless firms strike a deal
bbc.com
bbc.com
I'm sure it's fine, though, nothing to lose any sleep over.
The ones with races this November sure seem to be flipping out.
Based on reporting and fundraising, it looks like GOP members with races this midterm are, but I guess we’re both going off vibes and loose data.
By saying the admin should not use all available leverage points and levers to force them to lower prices, you're arguing for continued pharma profiteering, aren't you?
By the way, the Biden admin did exactly this through a lever contained within the Inflation Reduction Act for Ozempic, among others. [1]
[1] https://www.npr.org/2023/08/29/1195984752/medicare-drug-pric...
Jk ofc. But the ones scamming Americans are American middlemen - the PBMs.
With this change the regime is just proving that it will not fix problems caused by their rich friends but rather pass the bill onto the manufacturers
Profits in the U.S. for drug manufacturers on a per-drug level are significantly higher than in other countries.
By saying the admin should leave the innocent manufacturers alone, you're papering over this fact. Numerous experts on this issue have suggested the government needs to negotiate with pharma companies directly. Now the admin is doing just that you're saying those companies should not be negotiated with and they're innocent of all profiteering, a suggestion not sustained by the facts.
But my understanding is that this is due to the PBMs punishing manufacturers for lowering the list price. Lower list price means less profit for the PBMs for the discount they negotiate
Here, there is no threat that the drugs will be banned from the market completely. The threat is that the drug companies will face high tariffs that reduce sales. That’s a much less extreme threat than what the European countries use as leverage.
Negotiation with the government is also done in Australia. The drug is not banned here though if there's no agreement. It's just not publicly funded.
You understand the US is the most expensive place in the world for medicine right.
If you don't change your strategy this won't change. https://www.comparethemarket.com.au/health-insurance/feature...
A tariff isn't a ban either. Imposing a tariff and eliminating a subsidy are both just ways of reducing a foreign drug maker's sales in a local market by making the product more expensive.
Fundamentally, neither Australia nor the U.S. can force companies located in Switzerland or Denmark to sell them drugs at a particular rate. The only leverage they have is hurting drug maker's sales by reducing the demand in the local market.
> You understand the US is the most expensive place in the world for medicine right... If you don't change your strategy this won't change.
The executive negotiating with drug manufacturers is a dramatic change in strategy from what the U.S. has done before.
"The importance of the move may be largely symbolic at this point, as it does not apply to generic medicines - the most commonly used medicines in the US."
> Patented medicines will face a 100% tariff entering the US
This is paid those importing the medicines, and passed on to the consumers.
To put it simply if they could charge higher prices without losing volume they already would because no one else can produce that drug so there is no competition to keep prices down.
Corporations are notoriously greedy.
1. Corporations are greedy
2. Corporations will pass the tariff onto customers
#1 would imply drug companies charge the maximum price the market will bear. If so, how will they accomplish #2?
Tariffs are perfect in that it is not even an excuse. Maybe they can throw in an extra for their pocket too.
A good diagram of supply and demand with monopoly pricing power us the easiest way to explain this. I cannot find a good one online that shows the effect of tariffs though. In essence its worth losing some profit per unit to avoid losing too many sales.
Look into what happened with Insulin prices in the US in the recent past for a lesson on that.
Been getting this on mobile but desktop is fine. No idea what’s going on.
But anywho, try the official archive site: https://web.archive.org/web/20260403005348/https://www.bbc.c...
Hope this helps ya. [This doesn't require captcha and I am the creator of HtmlPipe, I have written about it and how it works technically as well, Please feel free to ask me any questions about it if you might have :) ]
[Edit: Just want to give introduction to what HtmlPipe is, its essentially a static web-page which can allow to archive archive.is pages on wayback machine/archive.org, I had actually gotten this idea within hackernews discussions themselves.]