Joco Today

U.S. Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas discussed the challenges facing America’s pharmaceutical supply chain during an interview on Real America’s Voice this week. He addressed concerns about the nation’s reliance on China for active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and outlined legislative efforts to encourage domestic drug manufacturing.

Marshall stated, “No, this is the horrible situation. America makes only about 10% of our active pharmaceutical ingredients. These are the simple things think about, you know, antibiotics, penicillin, ampicillin, Keflex. Think, think about insulin or monoclonal antibodies. These are real simple things, and I think it’s important that your listeners understand how this came to be. What China does is they steal our technology, then they replicate it, they bring it up to scale. Then after they’re up to scale, what they’ll do is they’ll enter the market with a product and undercut all their competition, and after they corner the market, they create an artificial shortage of that particular drug, and then they raise their prices. That’s their model. I saw this as a physician long before I came to Congress. I was doing an infertility surgery, and I asked the nurses, I needed some methylene blue to make sure someone’s fallopian tubes were open, and they said, Oh, Doc, we ran out of it. I said, Well, how come? And they said, well, it’s made in China, and that’s the only place we can get it from now. So these are just a few examples of what we see going on.”

He also highlighted concerns over drug quality standards in China: “Yeah, I do think it’s number one is we did turn our back away from it. And when they’re the economics of it you know why can China make this cheaper than the United States? And let’s think about that for a second. They steal the technology so they didn’t pay for the research and development. They have cheap labor. They use dirty energy. And here’s the big scary thing though is the standards. They don’t have the same consistency the same standards that you and I would expect in the situation; they also use knockoff drugs. Really concerned about the compounding pharmacy industry right now that China is sending over a knockoff compound close to the other GLP one competitors but it’s not exactly the same thing. At least 14 people have died in the past year taking this knockoff drug. So I think that on the one hand we turned our back to it but they really are able to do it cheaper but like I tell people the last thing you want is cheap healthcare cheap medications.”

Marshall addressed possible solutions for reducing foreign dependence: “Well I’m not sure that there is an easy one... The big cost of the drug that the retail price we’re paying is not how much it costs to make it but there’s something between the manufacturer and the buyer and that’s called a pharmacy benefit manager... If we could address that issue it's going to mean the cost of drugs [goes] down but keep the same quality... When we’re talking about quality... it's not just the drug itself; it's all impurities... It’s what comes with it that really concerns me and inconsistencies...”

He described efforts underway through legislation known as “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which aims to incentivize American companies to produce more APIs domestically: “Absolutely I know that Eli Lilly is already doing just that that they are quadrupling amount of API... building more and more of those... Then that's what we want to see is private enterprise take this and run you don’t want federal government opening manufacturing plants... The One Big Beautiful Bill is going to let them write off their manufacturing costs over a year’s time bringing in those big new machines which are just millions of dollars being able to write off their interest accelerated depreciation all those things is going bring manufacturing medications back United States but tariffs are driving this as well which I'm happy see..."

Marshall also commented on pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs): “So think about a pharmacy benefit manager as someone that's between people who make drugs then consumer... These pharmacy benefit managers determine what you can buy what you cannot buy... They're actually taking about 50 cents every dollar... Their profit margins huge three them controlling 85% prescription drugs country... Look I'm capitalist but when you have competition when you have capitalism but no competition then leads uncontrolled greed... We have package bills believe going get across finish line here...

“Senator Bill Cassidy from Louisiana is leading charge on HELP Committee health care committee I'm on as well but starts transparency that's bill we're particularly leading as price tags bill would show every consumer what cost for your surgery for x ray CT scan then onto pharmacy benefit managers forcing them show exactly where money going..."

He concluded by emphasizing steps needed for U.S.-based production: “I think first so we have make profitable be able compete so yes indeed China can make them cheaper than we do but would argue cheaper not always best so have we're doing things One Big Beautiful Bill like talked about going allow setting up these manufacturing plants… We're maintain quality as well… It's deregulation setting American entrepreneurs free…”

The issue of U.S dependence on foreign-made pharmaceuticals has drawn attention from lawmakers amid ongoing concerns regarding supply chain vulnerabilities.