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The generic drug industry has warned that American pharmaceutical prices are likely to cause drug shortages, including cancer treatments, and that manufacturers could stop making products that are not profitable.
Generic drugs, which are cheaper versions of drugs that no longer have patent protection, represent approximately 90% of the American supply of drugs. The majority is made outside the United States, in countries at a lower cost like India. The active ingredients used in products often come from China.
So far, drugs have avoided new large -scale American rates. But President Donald Trump said on several occasions that he was planning to apply them to the sector, and the US trade department this week said that he was investigating the implications of national security imports.
The ministry has up to nine months to publish its conclusions, but the Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lunick, said that the prices could occur earlier, the “month or two.”
John Murphy, Managing Director of the Association for Accessible Medicines, a group of American lobbies, said price would not benefit patients or would improve the safety of the health system. He said older injectables, such as cancer chemotherapy, were “particularly vulnerable”.
“For the generics already sold to a very narrow margin, you can see a situation where it becomes financially impracticable that certain products are put on the market if they want to lose money,” he said.
Murphy said he was putting pressure on the White House so that the industry was treated differently, arguing that there were other ways to encourage more production on production and that the taxation of costs on an industry that was already in difficulty with capital investment would not work.
“Where does the capital come from to change production if we are already barely the cost of goods?
The American health system is already struggling with supplies for certain products particularly at low margin: the number of shortages of active drugs reached a summit of 323 all times in the first quarter of last year, according to the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, the largest association of pharmacy professionals in the United States.
Mark Samuels, Director General of British Generic Manufacturers Association, said that pricing costs would be difficult to absorb because fierce competition meant that prices were already “considerably limited” and that there would therefore be a “potential of more shortages”.
India would be particularly seriously struck by pharmaceutical prices. It holds a share of 20% of the global export of generic drugs and a share of 60% of the offer of low -cost vaccines, according to the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance.
Some in the industry say that American prices could lead certain Indian manufacturers to bankruptcy.
“Indian pharmaceutical products will become more expensive on the American market, which could cause substantial loss of market share for our Indian pharmaceutical companies,” said B Partha Saradhi Reddy, president of the generic company Hetero and deputy to the Indian House, in March.
This could reduce the beneficiary margins for generic drugs at low cost, which makes them non-competitive and “non-viable” for the companies that make them, he said.
First, a group purchasing organization that buys drugs for more than 4,000 American hospitals, said there could be an increase in shortages. But he said that his three -year contracts meant that generic manufacturers were locked in prices, adding that they often include provisions that drug manufacturers do not provide must cover the cost of purchasing alternatives.
The prices are also likely to increase consumer prices. The Dutch bank estimates that a 24 -week prescription for generic cancer medication could cost $ 8,000 to $ 10,000 more if 25% prices are taxed.
Stephen Farrelly, world leader in pharmacy and health care in ING, said that people who are “hardest affected” were those without insurance, who paid for their own drugs, although people with health insurance can deal with higher bonuses on the line.
Prashant Reddy, co-author of The truth pillA book on the Pharmaceutical Industry of India, said that the United States often had no choice but to buy in India. “Many of these drugs are not manufactured anywhere else. They shoot themselves in the foot because it will simply increase prices in the United States,” he said.
