Saving in the US, paying globally? Industry research warns: Trump’s push to lower drug prices could instead incentivize pharmaceutical companies to raise prices overseas

According to Jinzi Finance APP, a study has found that the Trump administration's initiatives to reduce U.S. drug spending have actually served as a strong incentive for pharmaceutical companies to raise drug prices and limit drug accessibility in other parts of the world.

The president wanted the drug prices within Medicare, the federal health insurance program, to align with those in other wealthy countries. However, researchers found that among the drugs they studied, for about three-quarters of them, if companies charged Medicare lower prices, the revenue lost in the U.S. would exceed the total sales gained in the lower-price countries used as the new benchmark.

According to this study published Sunday in The Lancet, the result is that pharmaceutical companies may raise prices in some countries or simply withdraw from those markets.

Pharmaceutical companies have reached a series of agreements with the White House, while some are also looking to use this U.S. policy as leverage to increase prices elsewhere. For example, Astellas Pharma said that due to concerns over Trump's pricing policy, the company secured a higher price this year in Japan for a new ophthalmic drug.

In Europe, some companies are scaling back their plans. Biogen CEO Chris Viehbacher said this year that the company would launch its new postpartum depression drug Zurzuvae in only a handful of European countries; Roche Holding said it might never launch an as-yet-unapproved breast cancer tablet in its home market of Switzerland.

In the study, researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital analyzed 195 patented drugs that accounted for $87.9 billion in Medicare spending in 2024. They estimated the actual amounts paid by the program for these drugs, after accounting for confidential rebates and discounts, and compared them to prices in 19 reference countries.

The research team found that if Medicare drug prices were reduced to the reference level, the U.S. government would save $11.6 billion through the two pilot projects used to test the policy. But if 17 companies with separate pricing agreements with the White House were exempted, this figure would drop to $3.3 billion.

Earlier this month, nine more pharmaceutical companies reached pricing agreements with the government, but these deals were not included in the aforementioned analysis.