{"id":179175,"date":"2025-09-30T04:28:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T04:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/179175\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T04:28:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T04:28:08","slug":"cost-of-688-prescription-drugs-increased-since-trump-took-office-sanders-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/179175\/","title":{"rendered":"Cost of 688 Prescription Drugs Increased Since Trump Took Office, Sanders Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Support justice-driven, accurate and transparent news \u2014 make a quick donation<\/a> to Truthout today!\u00a0<\/p>\n

The prices of almost 700 prescription drugs have increased since President Donald Trump took office, according to a report released today<\/a> by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont).<\/p>\n

Twenty-five drugs have more than doubled in price, according to the report. <\/p>\n

\u201cMillions of Americans take one of the 688 drugs that have increased in price since Trump entered office in January of this year,\u201d the report says. \u201cMore than one in three of the drugs are indicated for neurological disease, cancer, or cardiovascular disease.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report notes that the administration\u2019s One Big Beautiful Bill Act \u201cis a multibillion-dollar giveaway to some of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world,\u201d adding that the legislation also \u201cmakes the largest federal health care cuts in history.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThe cuts will make it harder for millions of Americans to afford prescription drugs as people lose coverage and face ballooning premium bills and rising out-of-pocket costs,\u201d the report says. <\/p>\n

Related Story<\/p>\n


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\n \u201cHow many people need to get unnecessarily sicker before Congress is prepared to take on the greed?\u201d Sanders asked.\n <\/p>\n

In July, Trump sent letters<\/a> to 17 major pharmaceutical companies directing them to lower prescription drug prices \u201cwithin the next 60 days.\u201d The letters told manufacturers<\/a> that if they \u201crefuse to step up,\u201d the federal government \u201cwill deploy every tool in our arsenal to protect American families from continued abusive drug pricing practices,\u201d as per the White House.<\/p>\n

Almost 90 companies raised their prices after Trump sent out the letters, including four companies that had received the letters \u2014 Pfizer, Merck, Sanofi and Genentech, according to Sanders\u2019 office.<\/p>\n

\u201cI agree with President Trump: it is an outrage that the American people pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs,\u201d Sanders said in a statement<\/a>. \u201cBut unlike Trump, I believe we need more than just press releases, polite requests to drug companies and pilot projects. We need real action to take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and substantially reduce the cost of prescription drugs for all Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since January, Eton Pharmaceuticals raised the price of Galzin, which is used to treat a rare genetic liver disorder, by more than 1,500 percent, from $5,400 to $88,000 a year. The same drug costs $1,400 in the United Kingdom, as per the report. In May, Sanders introduced the Prescription Drug Price Relief Act<\/a>, which would ensure Americans pay no more than people in other major countries for the exact same prescription drug. <\/p>\n

Merck increased the price of the cancer medication, Keytruda, to $206,000 per year. Last year, Merck made more than $17 billion in profits and paid executives over $61 million, according to the senator\u2019s office. The same drug costs $81,000 in Germany. <\/p>\n

Another pharmaceutical giant, Johnson & Johnson, raised the price of the blood thinner Xarelto by 5 percent, bringing the annual cost to $7,200. In Canada, the same drug is sold for just $750. The company made $14.5 billion in profits last year and paid executives $64.5 million, according to the report. <\/p>\n

The report warns that the president\u2019s \u201cchaotic across-the-board tariffs will further increase prices,\u201d noting that the president \u201chas already imposed a 15 percent tariff on pharmaceutical products from Europe and Japan, and he has threatened to increase tariffs on pharmaceuticals to up to 250 percent.\u201d <\/p>\n

On September 25, Trump announced<\/a> on Truth Social<\/a> that starting October 1, the U.S. will impose a 100 percent tariff on \u201cany branded or patented Pharmaceutical Product, unless a Company IS BUILDING their Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plant in America.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report concludes that, \u201cIf Trump is serious about making real change, he should work with Congress to make sure all Americans pay no more than people in other countries for prescription drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Media that fights fascism<\/p>\n

Truthout is funded almost entirely by readers \u2014 that\u2019s why we can speak truth to power and cut against the mainstream narrative. But independent journalists at Truthout face mounting political repression under Trump.<\/p>\n

We rely on your support to survive McCarthyist censorship. Please make a tax-deductible one-time or monthly donation.<\/p>\n

This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)<\/a>, and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Support justice-driven, accurate and transparent news \u2014 make a quick donation to Truthout today!\u00a0 The prices of almost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[64,63,137,490],"class_list":{"0":"post-179175","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-medication"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}