The global pharmaceutical industry has found itself at the heart of geopolitical and trade tensions. The Trump administration has pushed policies to promote the sovereignty of US drugmakers, threatening tariffs on manufacturers or countries, and vowing to reduce prescription drug prices for Americans.
But it's an approach that could lead to "potential catastrophe", according to Karl Claxton, Professor of Economics at the University of York. "Instead of the US getting to grips with the fact that the healthcare system encourages and incentivises very high-cost medicine, instead of that, they've done a deal (...) I don't think it's going to fix the problem in the US. So I don't think US citizens will be huge beneficiaries. The rest of the world, particularly the high and middle-income countries are going to suffer unless we resist this pressure. And I think the pharmaceutical sector is going to suffer too."
