President Trump announces an agreement with Pfizer on drug prices, which is Vice President JD Vance, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, Medicare Director Chris Klompas and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (White House)
If September 30 You shouldn’t do anything better, you might have been involved in the White House event, where President Trump standing next to Albert Bourla, Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer, announced an agreement with a large drug company that was described from the podium as a “huge victory for the people of America.”
According to this agreement, the Pfizer will sell its drugs to Americans with a big discount from their list prices. For his part, Pfizer said the agreement ensures that “we are paying lower prices for their prescription drugs”.
Like so many statements issued by a brief White House, this agreement is much less than the eye. Will this effectively reduce the cost of prescription drugs for most Americans – or anything Americans are very questionable.
We are still where we don’t know everything we want to know. It is a pity, but also by design.
Peter Maybarduk, a citizen of society
However, Pfizer is a fabulous agreement – never mind that news media has portrayed it as the White House and Pfizer, as the main concession of the company to help the ordinary consumer.
The truth is that the company will not suffer any significant reduction in income or profit by offering these “discounts”. However, for three years, 100% rates will be released, which has been threatened by drug producers in short.
How do we know that Pfizer is the main recipient of the agreement? The price of its shares increased by almost 15%over the five days of the notice. Do you think a transaction that reduces the prices of the most popular product consumers will definitely produce stock market acquire? I neither.
Accordingly, it is appropriate to take a close look at what we know, and more importantly what we do not know about this agreement.
“We are still in the place where we do not know everything we want to know,” says Peter Maybarduk, the head of the non -profit consumer organization “Pokiočio to Medicines” group. “It’s a pity, but also by design.” The citizen of the public submitted a request for the Freedom of Information on documents of this agreement.
The pfizer and the White House describe the terms of the agreement as “confidential”. Pfizer told me that “more information” would be provided because the January installation date will be close. The White House claims that this agreement is secret because it is confronted with other drug manufacturers.
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“Many people have not been checked for gaps for what are negotiating,” Maybarduk said. According to him, the area of drug prices is so complex and so many participants are involved in it that it is extremely vulnerable to play – how it has been going on for decades.
What we know is not encouraging. Here’s what was said.
The transaction has three main components. One of them is Pfizer’s commitment – “voluntary”, says the company – to offer all the state Medicaid programs “The most favorable nation” prices for their drugs. In other words, it will be coordinated by the prices taxed in the basket of developed countries. What is unknown: which countries are in the bag? How are their comparable prices calculated, depending on the network of discounts and discounts, which is common in the pharmaceutical universe?
Since we do not know this, we do not know how many state Medicaid programs will save if anything. Medicaid, a state and federal program serving low -income Americans, by law, is already paying the lowest drug prices of any government program, in some cases in many or lower than prices in many foreign countries.
Hardly, Medicaid patients will see any price breaks. According to the law, their joint teaching is $ 4 for a prescription for “preferred” drugs and $ 8 for others. In many states, their common teachings are even lower-no more than $ 3 per scenario, and in some states as much as 50 cents or even zero. (California Medicaid Program, Medi-Cal, does not charge for a shared payment for drugs.)
The second component includes a Trumprx, a site that will be activated once next year and aims to “offer medication at a high discount on the list of the list when sold directly in American patients,” the White House said.
But not so “Trumpprx” would work. According to the White House, Trumpprx will simply direct users to consumer-Discount sites already owned by individual drug companies that are intended for patients without prohibition on their prescriptions. “The Federal Government is not going to control the pharmacy,” the White House spokesman said.
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The use of these concessions will not be a practical choice for many patients. This is because they will have to pay cash, and even some drug prices are still unproven.
It is honest to say that some patients may be important for some cheaper drug discounts. Pfizer has given me sample discounts on three drugs – Duavee, which is dedicated to menopause women, will be reduced to $ 30 per month from $ 203; Eucisa, dermatitis treatment, will decrease to $ 162 per month from $ 692; and Toviaz for hyperactive bladder, up to $ 42 from $ 290.
However, discounts on other Pfizer products, mentioned in the White House report, will not make the drugs particularly available. For example, the current almost $ 6,100 per month per month is Xeljanz – the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory conditions, which will be discounted at 40%, but it means that cash customers will still be on the hook for approximately $ 3,645 per month or $ 43,740 a year.
Does it solve the problem of the cost of the cost of insurance for patients? Ask the question is to answer him.
Drug companies started these discount sites many years ago in uninsured patients, hoping to create the impression that they were concerned with patients exceeded by their lists.
For consumers, the Trumpprx will not move the needle due to the prices of medicines. In any case, it is not important for 90% of Americans who receive their recipes through their health plans or government programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and the Veterans Department, as their drugs are already related.
The third component is associated with rates, which have threatened to have a short pharmaceutical import from several foreign countries to 100%. In a statement of the White House, Bourla said: “Tariffs are the most powerful means of motivating behavior,” he said, and clearly motivated us.
It sounds like acknowledgment that the Pfizer agreement was more related to the protection of its essence without giving tariffs, not the fact that American users are given a break.
Bourla was quoted in a Pfizer press release stating that the agreement examines “two critical fronts, rates and prices that suppressed industry estimates for historic lowlands.”
Is that? Pfizer shares, which closed $ 26.43 on Monday, over 1980. And the Great 1990 In the 1990s, when Trump’s rates were not a problem. 2013 Its prices and reusable, currently about 14.1x, decreased by as much as 4.6x; Merck and Eli Lilly repeated repeated repeated repeated drug producers have ranged from 10 times to 30x. The Merck’s Frags is currently 13.7, and Lilly 55.37, which are far from being kalamic for manufacturing companies. I asked Pfizer to explain what Bourla says but I didn’t get an answer.
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In any case, Pfizer recorded more than $ 8 billion profits last year with $ 63.6 billion for a nice $ 12.6%profit margin. Bourla has raised nearly $ 80 million. USD compensation from 2022 to 2024.
When considering Trump’s approach to the policy of drug prices, keep in mind that his efforts were more directed to his appetite Braggadocio during his first term than to create a consistent policy. Pfizer gave him what seemed like a big victory in 2018. In July, when it announced an increase in the price increase that came into force about a week earlier. Trump ran with the ball, taking credit for what he said, “Tweet” is “great news for the American people!” (Bourla was a Pfizer chief operational officer at the time; he rose to CEO a few months later.) Merck followed his retreat.
But it was an illusion. By December Both companies have restored prices. They both took advantage of the qualification they inserted into their original messages – Pfizer said that only the “delayed” price increases, Merck, that reduced the average net price of all their products, but practically reduced expensive medicines that did not sell. This reduced the price of one drug, Zepatier, but Zepatier was also RAN among hepatitis C treatment that its sales were actually zero.
It is also true that Trump’s statement that “promises to first announce American patients” is mocked by his administration’s initiatives in BIOS science, namely its freezing or a billion dollars at university, including biological research. Academic research is a cornerstone of US pharmaceutical research and development stone: 2020 The study found that “NIH funding has contributed to research on each new drug approved in 2010-2019, a total of $ 230 billion.”
Grants were abolished in response to accusations that universities did not commit enough anti -Semitism, or because they were involved in gender research or “diversity”. No one in the press room on September 30th. Did not appear to have a inconsistency between the boasting of the “landmark” agreement protecting US pharmaceutical research and development, and in the termination of funding, pharmaceutical research and development.
Nobody deny that Americans pay too much for their recipes, usually more than consumers in other countries. There are several ways to resolve this problem by passing laws and regulations. It’s not. This is a short one forms the transactions he boasts, but his claim that he has found a way to reduce US drug prices permanently is simply distraction.
The short did not pull out the discounts from the Pfizer – the company squeezed the discount from it. Saved for tariff exceptions is likely to outperform income and profit reduction from price reduction. However, Trump got what he wanted, however, the speaking point for a strong press. American patients? They get almost nothing.
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This story initially appeared at the Los Angeles Times.
