The U.S. pharmaceutical industry has singled out South Korea as a country that harms the interests of the United States, urging the U.S. government to use ongoing trade negotiations as leverage to pressure Seoul to reform its drug pricing policies.

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America(PhRMA), a leading industry lobbying group, made this appeal in a written submission to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on June 27. 

In the submission, PhRMA urged the U.S. government to use the current trade negotiations as a tool to address what it called “unfair” pharmaceutical policies and practices by foreign governments.

PhRMA identified South Korea, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and the United Kingdom as the countries of greatest concern, along with the European Union trading bloc, emphasizing that these high-income nations are large consumers of pharmaceuticals and should be prioritized by the U.S. government.

Specifically, PhRMA argued that South Korea’s health insurance authorities impose stringent review processes on pharmaceutical companies seeking to enter the South Korean market, resulting in significant delays in market access.

It also criticized South Korea’s health insurance authorities for suppressing drug prices below fair market value, resulting in a lower proportion of pharmaceutical spending allocated to innovative drugs compared with other high-income countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.