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As Trump Claims He's Slashing Costs, Big Pharma Jacks Up Prices on 350 Drugs
One critic charged that Trump's earlier deals with pharmaceutical companies "just nibble around the margins in terms of what is really driving high prices for prescription drugs in the US."
Dec 31, 2025
President Donald Trump in recent months has made ludicrously false claims about his administration slashing prescription drug prices in the US by as much as 600%, which would entail pharmaceutical companies paying people to use their products.
In reality, reported Reuters on Wednesday, drugmakers are planning to raise prices on hundreds of drugs in 2026.
Citing data from healthcare research firm 3 Axis Advisors, Reuters wrote that at least 350 branded medications are set for price hikes next year, including "vaccines against COVID, RSV, and shingles," as well as the "blockbuster cancer treatment Ibrance."
The total projected number of drugs seeing price increases next year is significantly higher than in 2025, when 3 Axis Advisors estimated that pharmaceutical companies raised prices on 250 medications.
The median price increase for drugs next year is projected at 4%, roughly the same as in 2025.
Reuters also found that some of the companies raising prices on their drugs are the same ones who struck deals with Trump to lower the costs of a limited number of prescriptions earlier this year, including Novartis, Pfizer, Boehringer Ingelheim, and GSK.
In announcing the deals with the pharmaceutical companies, Trump declared that "starting next year, American drug prices will come down fast and furious and will soon be the lowest in the developed world."
But Dr. Benjamin Rome, a health policy researcher at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, told Reuters that the projected savings for Americans under the Trump deals are a drop in the bucket compared with the continued price hikes on other drugs.
"These deals are being announced as transformative when, in fact, they really just nibble around the margins in terms of what is really driving high prices for prescription drugs in the US," Rome explained.
Merith Basey, CEO of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now, a patient advocacy organization focused exclusively on lowering the cost of medications, also said she was unimpressed by Trump's deals with drugmakers.
"Voluntary agreements with drug companies—especially when key details remain undisclosed—are no substitute for durable, system-wide reforms," she said earlier this month. "Patients are overwhelmingly calling on Congress to do more to lower prescription drug prices by holding Big Pharma accountable and addressing the root causes of high drug prices, because drugs don’t work if people can’t afford them."
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Trump's 9 New Prescription Drug Deals 'No Substitute' for Systemic Reform
"Patients are overwhelmingly calling on Congress to do more to lower prescription drug prices by holding Big Pharma accountable and addressing the root causes of high drug prices," said one campaigner.
Dec 19, 2025
"Starting next year, American drug prices will come down fast and furious and will soon be the lowest in the developed world," President Donald Trump claimed Friday as the White House announced agreements with nine pharmaceutical manufacturers.
The administration struck most favored nation (MFN) pricing deals with Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim, Genentech, Gilead Sciences, GSK, Merck, Novartis, and Sanofi. The president—who has launched the related TrumpRx.gov—previously reached agreements with AstraZeneca, EMD Serono, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Pfizer.
"The White House said it has made MFN deals with 14 of the 17 biggest drug manufacturers in the world," CBS News noted Friday. "The three drugmakers that were not part of the announcement are AbbVie, Johnson & Johnson, and Regeneron, but the president said that deals involving the remaining three could be announced at another time."
However, as Trump and congressional Republicans move to kick millions of Americans off of Medicaid and potentially leave millions more uninsured because they can't afford skyrocketing premiums for Affordable Care Act (ACA) plans, some critics suggested that the new drug deals with Big Pharma are far from enough.
"When 47% of Americans are concerned they won't be able to afford a healthcare cost next year, steps to reduce drug prices for patients are welcomed, especially by patients who rely on one of the overpriced essential medicines named in today's announcement," said Merith Basey, CEO of Patients for Affordable Drugs Now, in a statement.
"But voluntary agreements with drug companies—especially when key details remain undisclosed—are no substitute for durable, system-wide reforms," Basey stressed. "Patients are overwhelmingly calling on Congress to do more to lower prescription drug prices by holding Big Pharma accountable and addressing the root causes of high drug prices, because drugs don't work if people can't afford them."
As the New York Times reported Friday:
Drugs that will be made available in this way include Amgen's Repatha, for lowering cholesterol, at $239 a month; GSK's asthma inhaler, Advair Diskus, at $89 a month; and Merck's diabetes medication Januvia, at $100 a month.
Many of these drugs are nearing the end of their patent protection, meaning that the arrival of low-cost generic competition would soon have prompted manufacturers to lower their prices.
In other cases, the direct-buy offerings are very expensive and out of reach for most Americans.
For example, Gilead will offer Epclusa, a three-month regimen of pills that cures hepatitis C, for $2,492 a month on the site. Most patients pay far less using insurance or with help from patient assistance programs. Gilead says on its website that "typically a person taking Epclusa pays between $0 and $5 per month" with commercial insurance or Medicare.
While medication prices are a concern for Americans who face rising costs for everything from groceries to utility bills, the outcome of the ongoing battle on Capitol Hill over ACA tax credits—which are set to expire at the end of the year—is expected to determine how many people can even afford to buy health insurance for next year.
The ACA subsidies fight—which Republicans in the US House of Representatives ignored in the bill they passed this week before leaving Capitol Hill early—has renewed calls for transitioning the United States from its current for-profit healthcare system to Medicare for All.
"At the heart of our healthcare crisis is one simple truth: Corporations have too much power over our lives," Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said on social media Friday. "Medicare for All is how we take our power back and build a system that puts people over profits."
Jayapal reintroduced the Medicare for All Act in April with Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) and Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Ranking Member Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). The senator said Friday that some of his top priorities in 2026 will be campaign finance reform, income and wealth inequality, the rapid deployment of artificial intelligence, and Medicare for All.
Earlier this month, another backer of that bill, US Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), said: "We must stop tinkering around the edges of a broken healthcare system. Yes, let's extend the ACA tax credits to prevent a huge spike in healthcare costs for millions. Then, let's finally create a system that puts your health over corporate profits. We need Medicare for All."
It's not just progressives in Congress demanding that kind of transformation. According to Data for Progress polling results released late last month, 65% of likely US voters—including 78% of Democrats, 71% of Independents, and 49% of Republicans—either strongly or somewhat support "creating a national health insurance program, sometimes called 'Medicare for All.'"
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'We Are Being Held to Ransom': Trump-Starmer Deal Would Force NHS to Pay More for Medicines
One British lawmaker condemned the agreement as "a Trump shakedown of the NHS."
Dec 01, 2025
The government of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer faced swift backlash on Monday after the Trump administration announced a deal under which the United Kingdom's prized National Health Service would pay higher prices for new medicines in exchange for tariff exemptions.
The agreement in principle, outlined in a statement by the Office of the United States Trade Representative, was seen by UK lawmakers and advocacy groups as a gross capitulation to US President Donald Trump and the pharmaceutical industry that would harm the NHS and British patients for years to come.
"Giving in to Big Pharma’s demands to hike the price of medicines spells disaster for our NHS, and for the lives of ordinary people," said Global Justice Now, a UK-based group. "We are being held to ransom. Our government must stand up to Big Pharma and for our NHS by reversing course."
Under the three-year deal, the NHS would boost the net price it pays for new pharmaceutical drugs, many of which emerge from the US, by 25%—a change that's expected to cost British taxpayers roughly £3 billion. In return, Trump has agreed not to impose tariffs on UK pharmaceuticals.
Helen Morgan, the Liberal Democrat MP for North Shropshire, denounced the new agreement as "a Trump shakedown of the NHS." As evidence, she pointed to US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s celebration of the bilateral deal.
"It cannot go ahead," said Morgan. "RFK Jr. has put it in black and white: Trump demanded these pay rises to put Americans first, and our government rolled over. Patients stuck on crammed hospital corridors, or unable to get an ambulance, won’t forget it."
"The British people didn’t vote for this," Morgan added. "The government must put this agreement to a vote in parliament.”
Andrew Hill, a visiting health economics researcher at the University of Liverpool, similarly criticized the deal.
“The UK hasn’t benefited from this at all, but we’re having to pay all this extra money," said Hill. "More money spent on drugs means less money spent on ambulances, doctors, nurses, simple health interventions."
In addition to facing the threat of Trump tariffs, the UK government was under pressure from the powerful pharmaceutical industry to jack up NHS drug spending. The Guardian reported in September that "big pharmaceutical companies have ditched or paused nearly £2 billion in planned UK investments so far this year" as the firms "accused the government of not spending enough on new medicines."
Survey data released just ahead of Monday's deal announcement shows that 64% of the British public is opposed to the NHS paying higher prices for medicines.
"This is a betrayal of NHS patients," said Diarmaid McDonald, executive director of the advocacy group Just Treatment. "Big Pharma have got what they want. Donald Trump has got what he wants. In the face of their coordinated threats, the government has folded and thousands of patients will pay for this with their lives, as precious funds get stripped from other parts of the health service to line the pockets of rich pharmaceutical execs."
"MPs need to urgently hold the government to account," McDonald added, "and demand they publish the evidence showing the impact of this catastrophic move.”
"This outrageous giveaway to Big Pharma does nothing to lower prices in the United States. It only hurts UK patients."
Asked at a Monday press briefing if the deal would actually benefit US patients and consumers, as the Trump administration has claimed, or if the alleged revenue generated by the agreement would just be "sucked up" by the drug companies, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt did not have an immediate answer.
"I'm going to be honest with you, Ed," Leavitt told the reporter: "I'll get you an answer to that question after the briefing."
Peter Maybarduk, Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines director, argued in a statement that the agreement wouldn't help Americans or Britons.
" Drug prices are far too high everywhere, including in the UK, backed by patent monopolies and contributing to rationing and preventable suffering," said Maybarduk. "This outrageous giveaway to Big Pharma does nothing to lower prices in the United States. It only hurts UK patients while distracting from the serious action needed at home to hold Pharma accountable and make medicine affordable and available for all.”
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