Sandoz CEO Criticizes EU Drug Price Proposal, Warns of US Tariffs

By Maggie Fick

LONDON (Reuters) -The chief executive of generic drugmaker Sandoz said a proposal by the CEOs of Novartis and Sanofi to introduce a Europe-wide list price for new medicines is "deeply flawed" and would not solve global pricing inequities.

Richard Saynor told Reuters that the proposal - outlined in a letter to the Financial Times last week - ignores structural drivers of high drug prices in the United States.

"It made me smile, made me laugh," Saynor said of the proposal, adding that he thinks the Trump administration will succeed in driving down prices for brand-name medicines. But he said big pharmaceutical companies should not respond by hiking prices in Europe, which would hurt patient access.

Saynor argued that U.S. patients have long borne a disproportionate share of costs for innovative medicines, while large drugmakers maintain high margins.

He cited Amgen's autoimmune treatment Enbrel, which costs $70,000 per patient per year in the U.S., compared with $7,000 in Europe.

Earlier this month, Sandoz filed a U.S. antitrust lawsuit against Amgen, alleging the company blocked biosimilar competition, including Sandoz's own version. Biosimilars are near-identical copies of complex biologic drugs whose patents have expired.

Saynor said some form of U.S. price reform is inevitable, pointing to President Donald Trump's stalled plan to link drug prices to international benchmarks during his first term. Reuters reported last week that the Trump administration is again weighing such a move.

Saynor said the structure of the U.S. healthcare system - including pharmacy benefit managers - inflates prices and he likened PBMs to "leeches sucking value out of healthcare".

Generic drugs account for more than 90% of prescriptions filled in the U.S. but just 17% of spending, according to the Association for Accessible Medicines, the main generic medicines trade body. Saynor said greater use of generic and biosimilar drugs could help fund access to genuine innovation, rather than sustaining high prices for older, patent-protected medicines.

Swiss-headquartered Sandoz, which spun off from Novartis in 2023, is one of the world's largest makers of generic and biosimilar drugs. The company sells anti-infectives and generic narcotics for hospital use in the United States.

Saynor said Sandoz's North America President Keren Haruvi, who also chairs the AAM, has been meeting with White House officials nearly every week to discuss pharmaceutical imports and U.S. reliance on foreign drug production.

"They have some really tough choices to make about security of supply ... and I'm quite optimistic these are the right conversations to have ... about accessibility, affordability," he said.

He warned that if significant tariffs are imposed, Sandoz could be forced to withdraw some products from the U.S. market.

(Reporting by Maggie FickEditing by Mark Potter)