President Donald Trump entered office pledging to slash prescription drug prices “almost immediately.” But according to a new report released by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), prices have risen for 688 medications since January, with some drugs doubling or even tripling in cost during his first months in power.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee minority staff analysis shows that “Millions of Americans take one of the 688 drugs that have increased in price since Trump entered office in January of this year. More than one in three of the drugs are indicated for neurological disease, cancer, or cardiovascular disease.” Twenty-five medicines more than doubled in cost.
The findings land in stark contrast to Trump’s high-profile pledges to pressure pharmaceutical companies. In July, he sent letters to 17 major manufacturers instructing them to lower prices “within the next 60 days.” The letters warned that if companies “refuse to step up,” the federal government “will deploy every tool in our arsenal to protect American families from continued abusive drug pricing practices.”
Yet almost 90 companies raised their prices after the letters went out, including Pfizer, Merck, Sanofi, and Genentech. According to the report, 87 drugs increased in price in the weeks after Trump’s deadline, with a median increase of 8 percent.
Sanders, who has introduced legislation to link U.S. drug prices to international benchmarks, was blunt in his response. “I agree with President Trump: it is an outrage that the American people pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs,” he said. “But 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.”
The report highlights some of the most dramatic examples. Galzin, a treatment for Wilson’s disease, a rare genetic liver disorder, jumped by more than 1,500 percent. “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,” the report notes.
Merck increased the cost of its cancer drug Keytruda to $206,000 a year. The same treatment costs $81,000 in Germany. Last year Merck made more than $17 billion in profits and paid executives over $61 million, according to Sanders’ office. Johnson & Johnson raised the blood thinner Xarelto by 5 percent to $7,200 a year. In Canada, the same medicine sells for $750. The company reported $14.5 billion in profits last year and paid executives $64.5 million. Vertex raised the price of the cystic fibrosis treatment Trikafta by nearly $24,000, bringing the annual U.S. price to $365,000 compared with $146,000 in Canada.
The HELP Committee report concludes that patients’ out-of-pocket spending remains closely tied to list prices, meaning these hikes directly hit families across the country.
Even as prices climbed, the administration advanced policies that could drive costs higher. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the report says, “is a multibillion-dollar giveaway to some of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world,” and “makes the largest federal health care cuts in history.” It adds: “The 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.” The legislation also prevents or delays Medicare from negotiating prices on some of the world’s most expensive cancer therapies, including Darzalex, Keytruda, Opdivo, and Yervoy.
At the same time, tariffs are becoming a new factor. The report warns that the president’s “chaotic across-the-board tariffs will further increase prices,” noting he has already imposed a 15 percent tariff on pharmaceuticals from Europe and Japan and threatened rates as high as 250 percent. On September 25, Trump announced on Truth Social that starting October 1 the U.S. would impose a 100 percent tariff on “any branded or patented Pharmaceutical Product, unless a Company IS BUILDING their Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plant in America.”
Trump has also made sweeping statements about expected price reductions. In past remarks, he promised: “pharmaceutical prices will be reduced almost immediately.” At another point, he claimed he would cut prices by “1,200, 1,300 and 1,400, 1,500%.” He also threatened to fire “every single one” of his top officials if prices did not “drop like a rock.”
But the HELP Committee report documents the opposite trend. Prices have continued to rise, with the steepest increases coming in some of the most essential and widely used therapies.
Sanders’ Prescription Drug Price Relief Act, introduced earlier this year, would ensure Americans pay no more than residents of other major countries for the same medicines. At a HELP Committee hearing, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. initially committed to working with Sanders on the proposal but the agency “stopped responding to follow up requests after just one meeting,” according to the report.
Sanders summed up the stakes plainly: “Now is the time to end the greed of the pharmaceutical industry.”
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