Senate launches bipartisan bill to lower drug prices
Legislation pushed by Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Peter Welch (D-VT) would prohibit pharmaceutical companies from charging more than the international average price for drugs, with penalties for non-compliance.
Hawley on the Senate floor/ Rod Lamkey
The Senate unveiled a bipartisan bill aimed at lowering drug prices. It is the Fair Prescription Drug Pricing for Americans Act, which focuses on the list price of drugs and was pushed by senators Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Peter Welch (D-VT).
Specifically, the legislation aims to lower drug prices by prohibiting companies from being able to sell at prices higher than the international average, imposing penalties on those that don't comply.
"For too long, Americans have subsidized prescription drug costs for foreigners while paying outrageous prices for their own medications. This bipartisan legislation would continue that work to end a drug market that favors Big Pharma, make prescriptions affordable again, and empower Americans to get the care they need," Senator Hawley, who was re-elected in November 2024 to a second term in the upper chamber, said of the legislation.
The Missouri Republican also remarked on the first Trump Administration's efforts to "ensure that American patients pay the same prices as consumers overseas."
"No one should ever be forced to choose between paying for the prescriptions they need or putting food on the table. But Big Pharma’s price gouging has made that a reality for many Americans, forcing them to pay four or five times more for the same lifesaving medications as folks in other countries—it’s unacceptable," Senator Welch said in turn.
What would the Fair Prescription Drug Pricing for Americans Act do?
If passed by Congress and signed into law by President Trump, the bipartisan legislation would do the following:
- Ban pharmaceutical companies from selling drugs at prices above the international average.
- Impose "stiff monetary penalties" on pharmaceutical companies that fail to comply with the law. According to a statement from Senator Hawley's office, this penalty "would equal 10 times the difference between the US list price and the average price of the drug sold in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, and the United Kingdom."
As for the methodology for calculating these penalties, they will be charged for each unit of drug or biological product sold at a higher price.
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