President Donald Trump needs drugmakers to lower their costs in the US — so he’ll push them to increase costs in other countries to offset the hit to their backside line, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick mentioned Friday.
“The president’s going to say that you drug manufacturers cannot sell here unless you sell there at a higher price. Stop being willing to sell to them at such a low price,” Lutnick mentioned Friday on “The Axios Show.”
Lutnick’s feedback are the newest in a collection of pronouncements by the Trump administration aimed toward pressuring pharmaceutical firms to scale back drug costs for Americans.
The president’s principal effort facilities on getting drugmakers to supply the identical value in the US as they do in Europe and other peer countries, the so-called “Most Favored Nation” value. Trump has repeatedly mentioned that US sufferers are subsidizing their counterparts elsewhere. Americans paid nearly three times as a lot for medicines as did folks in comparable countries in 2022.
However, specialists have questioned Trump’s authority to dictate drug costs in other countries or drive firms to promote at sure costs in the US. Any mandate would seemingly be met with authorized motion.
Trump tried to drive “Most Favored Nation” pricing on the pharmaceutical trade close to the top of his first time period, finalizing a rule for a mannequin program in which Medicare would pay the that value for 50 medicine administered in docs’ workplaces. But the initiative was shortly blocked in court docket on procedural grounds and later rescinded by the Biden administration.
In May, he revived the hassle with an executive order that warned drug producers to supply US sufferers the bottom value paid for a drug in a peer nation or face repercussions. He castigated the European Union on the time for forcing drugmakers to present their merchandise at low costs, saying, “the game is up, sorry.”
Unhappy with the outcomes of subsequent negotiations between the trade and his administration, Trump wrote letters in late July to 17 main pharmaceutical CEOs.
In the letters, Trump known as for producers to lengthen “Most Favored Nation” pricing to all medicine supplied to Medicaid enrollees and demanded that the businesses assure that Medicaid, Medicare and commercial-market insurers pay such costs for all new medicine. Plus, he pushed drugmakers to promote sure medicines immediately to customers at “Most Favored Nation” costs, reducing out other gamers in the availability chain that may maintain prices elevated.
His strain marketing campaign has but to yield important outcomes in the US. Still, Trump is vowing to levy tariffs on pharmaceutical imports, significantly on expensive brand-name medicines.
Some trade specialists have mentioned that it’s extra seemingly that drugmakers will increase costs in other countries than lower them in the US. Last month, Eli Lilly introduced it could hike the price of its weight-loss drug Mounjaro in the United Kingdom in order to scale back its price in the US.
“This rebalancing may be difficult, but it means the prices for medicines paid by governments and health systems need to increase in other developed markets like Europe in order to make them lower in the US,” the corporate mentioned in a press release on the time.
NCS has reached out to the European Commission and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the trade’s principal commerce affiliation, for remark.
PhRMA has praised Trump in the previous for pushing international governments to pay their “fare share for medicines. U.S. patients should not foot the bill for global innovation.” But it has additionally warned that forcing drugmakers to promote their merchandise at “Most Favored Nation” costs in the US would harm funding in analysis.