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US President Donald Trump took a swipe at the European Union on Monday when he announced plans to lower the cost of medicines for Americans.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to pay what Europe pays,\u201d Trump told journalists, adding that EU countries are \u201cdifficult,\u201d \u201cbrutal,\u201d and \u201cnasty\u201d in their dealings with drug companies.<\/p>\n
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Drug prices in the US are among the highest in the world. It spent $617.2 billion (\u20ac542.7 billion) on medicines in 2022, compared with $233.5 billion (\u20ac205.3 billion) in 24 European countries combined, according to an analysis<\/strong><\/a> from the RAND Corporation.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s plan would tie US pharmaceutical prices to the lowest rate paid by other wealthy countries \u2013 if drugmakers don\u2019t bring down prices on their own first. But it\u2019s not yet clear how it could be implemented or what savings it would bring to US patients.<\/p>\n So what about the European approach to medicine prices is so \u201cdifficult,\u201d \u201cbrutal,\u201d and \u201cnasty,\u201d exactly?<\/p>\n Prices are higher in the US because drug companies say they need to recoup the costs of developing new medicines \u2013 but European countries negotiate to lower their prices, whereas the US government generally does not.<\/p>\n Most European countries also consider the costs of the same medicine in other countries when they decide how much they are willing to pay for it, according to a report<\/strong><\/a> from the World Health Organization (WHO).<\/p>\n Even so, Europeans pay different prices for medicines depending on where they live. Switzerland, for example, spends an average of \u20ac525 on drugs per person annually, while Croatia spends \u20ac262.<\/p>\n That\u2019s partly because their negotiations with drug companies are confidential, which critics say can drive up the cost of already-expensive drugs.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s essentially no transparency,\u201d Huseyin Naci, an associate professor of health policy at the London School of Economics, told Euronews Health.<\/p>\n Countries also have different priorities when they negotiate prices. In England and Sweden, cost-effectiveness is a key measure, Naci said, while Germany considers how much a new medicine could benefit patients compared to existing options.<\/p>\n Notably, drug prices have risen in European countries in recent years. In Germany, for example, medicine costs rose 11.5 per cent in hospitals and 2.6 per cent in retail pharmacies between 2012 and 2022.<\/p>\nADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n