Pharmacists stockpile most common drugs on chance of targeted Trump tariffs

By Jackie Forti r and Arthur Allen KFF Soundness News In the dim basement of a Salt Lake City pharmacy hundreds of amber-colored plastic pill bottles sit stacked in rows one man s defensive wall in a tariff war Independent pharmacist Benjamin Jolley and his colleagues worry that the tariffs aimed at bringing drug production to the United States could instead drive companies out of business while raising prices and creating more of the drug shortages that have plagued American patients for several years Jolley bought six months worth of the majority expensive large bottles hoping to shield his business from the across-the-board tariffs on imported goods that President Donald Trump reported April Now with threats of additional tariffs targeting pharmaceuticals Jolley worries that costs will soar for the medications that will fill those bottles Related Articles Aging Boom s next stage Rise of the -somethings Publix recalls baby food pouches after testing finds elevated levels of lead Weight-loss drugs may lower cancer vulnerability in people with diabetes a inquiry suggests An ex-Harvard Physiological School morgue manager admits his role in the theft of human remains RFK Jr s MAHA overview raises concerns about vaccines American foods and prescription drugs In principle Jolley reported using tariffs to push manufacturing from China and India to the U S makes sense In the event of war China could fast stop all exports to the United States I understand the rationale for tariffs I m not sure that we re gonna do it the right way Jolley commented And I am definitely sure that it s going to raise the price that I pay my suppliers Squeezed by insurers and middlemen independent pharmacists such as Jolley find themselves on the front lines of a tariff storm Nearly everyone down the line drugmakers pharmacies wholesalers and middlemen opposes the greater part tariffs Slashing drug imports could trigger widespread shortages experts noted because of America s dependence on Chinese- and Indian-made chemical ingredients which form the critical building blocks of a great number of medicines Industry authorities caution that steep tariffs on raw materials and finished pharmaceuticals could make drugs more expensive Big ships don t change unit overnight disclosed Robin Feldman a UC Law San Francisco professor who writes about prescription drug issues Even if companies pledge to bring manufacturing home it will take time to get them up and running The key will be to avoid damage to industry and pain to consumers in the process Trump on April explained he would soon announce a major tariff on pharmaceuticals which have been largely tariff-free in the U S for years When they hear that they will leave China he commented The U S imported billion worth of medicines in from China but also India Europe and other areas Prescription drugs sit ready to be distributed to patients at Pharmacy in Alhambra California Jackie Forti r KFF Medical News KFF Robustness News TNS Trump s announcement sent drugmakers scrambling to figure out whether he was serious and whether specific tariffs would be levied more narrowly since various parts of the U S drug supply chain are fragile drug shortages are common and upheaval at the FDA leaves questions about whether its staffing is adequate to inspect factories where quality problems can lead to supply chain crises On May Trump signed an executive order asking drugmakers to bring down the prices Americans pay for prescriptions to put them in line with prices in other countries Meanwhile pharmacists predict even the tariffs Trump has demanded will hurt Jolley revealed a prospective increase of up to cents a vial is not a king s ransom but it adds up when you re a small pharmacy that fills prescriptions a year The one word that I would say right now to describe tariffs is uncertainty reported Scott Pace a pharmacist and owner of Kavanaugh Pharmacy in Little Rock Arkansas To weather price fluctuations Pace stocked up on the drugs his pharmacy dispenses largest part I ve identified the top generics in my store and I have basically put days worth of those on the shelf just as a starting point he noted Those are the diabetes drugs the blood pressure medicines the antibiotics those things that I know folks will be sicker without Pace explained tariffs could be the death knell for the plenty of independent pharmacies that exist on razor-thin margins unless reimbursements rise to keep up with higher costs Unlike other retailers pharmacies can t pass along such costs to patients Their payments are set by medical insurers and pharmacy benefit managers largely owned by insurance conglomerates who act as middlemen between drug manufacturers and purchasers Neal Smoller who employs people at his Village Apothecary in Woodstock New York is not optimistic It s not like they re gonna go back and say well here s your bump because of the tariff he noted Costs are gonna go up and then the sluggish responses from the PBMs they re going to lead us to lose more money at a faster rate than we already are Smoller who stated he has built a niche selling vitamins and supplements fears that FDA firings will mean fewer federal inspections and safety checks I worry that our pharmaceutical industry becomes like our supplement industry where it s the wild West he disclosed Pills sit in the tray of a pill-counting machine at Pharmacy in Alhambra California Jackie Forti r KFF Healthcare News KFF Fitness News TNS Narrowly focused tariffs might work in chosen cases disclosed Marta Wosi ska a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution s Center on Physical condition Agenda For example while drug manufacturing plants can cost billion and take three to five years to set up it would be relatively cheap to build a syringe factory a business American manufacturers abandoned during the covid- pandemic because China was dumping its products here Wosi ska revealed It s not surprising that giants such as Novartis and Eli Lilly have promised Trump they ll invest billions in U S plants she explained since much of their final drug product is made here or in Europe where governments negotiate drug prices The industry is using Trump s tariff saber-rattling as leverage in an April letter drug companies demanded European governments pay them more or face an exodus to the United States Brandon Daniels CEO of supply chain company Exiger is bullish on tariffs He thinks they could help bring specific chemical manufacturing back to the U S which when coupled with increased use of automation would reduce the labor advantages of China and India You ve got real estate in North Texas that s cheaper than real estate in Shenzhen he commented at an economic conference April in Washington referring to a major Chinese chemical manufacturing center But Wosi ska mentioned no amount of tariffs will compel makers of generic drugs responsible for of U S prescriptions to build new factories in the U S Payment structures and competition would make it economic suicide she reported Several U S generics firms have declared bankruptcy or closed U S factories over the past decade declared John Murphy CEO of the Association for Accessible Medicines the generics contract group Reversing that trend won t be easy and tariffs won t do it he explained There s not a magic level of tariffs that magically incentivizes them to come into the U S he noted There is no room to make a billion-dollar assets in a domestic facility if you re going to lose money on every dose you sell in the U S arena His group has tried to explain these complexities to Trump administrators and hopes word is getting through We re not PhRMA Murphy mentioned referring to the powerful transaction group primarily representing makers of brand-name drugs I don t have the tools to go to Mar-a-Lago to talk to the president myself A great number of of the working ingredients in American drugs are imported Fresenius Kabi a German company with facilities in eight U S states to produce or distribute sterile injectables vital hospital drugs for cancer and other conditions complained in a letter to U S Transaction Representative Jamieson Greer that tariffs on these raw materials could paradoxically lead particular companies to move finished product manufacturing overseas Fresenius Kabi also makes biosimilars the generic forms of expensive biologic drugs such as Humira and Stelara The United States is typically the last developed country where biosimilars appear on the realm because of patent laws Tariffs on biosimilars coming from overseas where Fresenius makes such drugs would further incentivize U S use of more expensive brand-name biologics the March letter noted Biosimilars which can cost a tenth of the original drug s price launch on average - years later in the U S than in Canada or Europe In addition to getting cheaper knockoff drugs faster European countries also pay far less than the United States for brand-name products Paradoxically Murphy revealed those same countries pay more for generics European governments tend to establish more stable contracts with makers of generics while in the United States rabid competition drives down prices to the point at which a manufacturer maybe scrimps on product quality stated John Barkett a White House Domestic Framework Council member in the Biden administration As a consequence Wosi ska revealed without exemptions or other measures put in place I really worry about tariffs causing drug shortages Smoller the New York pharmacist doesn t see any upside to tariffs How do I solve the concern of caring for my society he noted but not being subject to the emotional roller coaster that is dispensing hundreds of prescriptions a day and watching every single one of them be a loss or cents profit KFF Physical condition News Distributed by Tribune Content Agency LLC