GUEST COLUMN, Andrew Spiegel, Global Colon Cancer Association Executive Director
The Trump administration just launched a “Section 301” investigation into Germany’s pharmaceutical pricing practices. The move kicks off a formal process to address foreign free-riding by one of the world’s largest economies — and helps advance the broader goal of ensuring wealthy countries pay their fair share for global innovation.
Patients in the United States, Germany, and every other country ought to cheer this news. For decades, Germany and other developed nations have underpaid for lifesaving medicines — and obtained low prices by delaying and rationing drug access. These access restrictions have had real impacts on patients.
The U.S. government, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, has repeatedly asked Germany and other wealthy countries to end these practices. But they’ve refused those polite requests. So now, the Trump administration is ramping up the pressure on Germany — and considering investigating other countries’ pricing practices too.
It’s easy to see why the Trump administration — just like prior administrations — is annoyed with European pricing practices. Germany pays only about a quarter of the market-based prices that Americans pay for brand-name medicines.
American patients bear the cost of this freeloading via their wallets. But patients in other developed countries pay with their lives. Due to rationing measures, patients in 19 other high-income countries have access to just 36% of all new medicines, including pioneering cancer therapies, that launched globally in recent years. American patients on Medicare have access to 88% of these medicines.
Even when the health systems in those developed countries decide to cover a new medicine, bureaucrats typically only allow the sickest patients to take cutting-edge drugs. Public insurance reimburses only 22% of new drugs for all approved uses. As a result, patients in those countries typically wait three years longer than Americans to access new medicines.
When my mother died of colon cancer, I saw firsthand what happens when patients run out of treatment options, and in the decades since, I have worked to ensure patients around the world have access to the medicines they need. I know that these delays have life-and-death consequences. One European analysis found that nearly 400,000 deaths across the continent each year could be prevented if patients received timely access to effective existing treatments.
Section 301 investigations — or even the threat of investigations — have proven successful at prompting countries to change their behavior in the past. Earlier this year, the United States and the United Kingdom formalized a trade agreement in which Britain committed to doubling spending on innovative medicines as a share of GDP, in exchange for the Trump administration agreeing to not launch a Section 301 investigation or impose new tariffs.
Politely asking other wealthy countries to voluntarily reform their pricing practices hasn’t worked. Patients can only hope that these Section 301 investigations, and the ensuing pressure tactics, prove more successful. More UK-style deals would enable scientists to develop more cutting-edge therapies — and ensure patients can actually access those lifesaving drugs.
Andrew Spiegel Esq., is the Executive Director of the Global Colon Cancer Association. This piece originally ran in The Washington Examiner.
