Drugmakers will suffer if health law falls?

But if the court overturns the law, drugmakers could again become targets in the debate over how to reduce a ballooning U.S. deficit, industry experts say.

Economic concerns could revive ambitious proposals to cut medical costs by reimporting cheaper drugs from other countries, cutting pharmaceutical prices for the government-run Medicare and Medicaid health plans, and even replacing private insurance with government-funded plans.

"It could be a lot worse for pharmaceutical companies," said Les Funtleyder, portfolio manager for Miller Tabak & Co. "There will be healthcare reform in America because the economic situation will require it sometime in the next 10 years."

At the same time, the pharmaceutical industry is grappling with an unprecedented wave of patent expirations on top-selling drugs like Pfizer Inc's cholesterol-lowering Lipitor. More than $70 billion in revenue from brand-name medicines will have lost patent protection between the second half of 2011 and the end of 2015, according to ratings agency Fitch.

Republicans in the House of Representatives are already questioning whether the industry received too sweet a deal under the healthcare law, and have started an investigation into negotiations between drugmakers and the White House. Goals of the probe include finding out whether a deal was made between pharmaceutical companies and the Obama Administration in return for publicly supporting the law, according to officials at the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

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