President Donald Trump told drugmakers at a White House meeting Tuesday they were charging “astronomical” prices and promised to get better bargains for government health programs, in addition to finding ways to get new medicines to market faster.
“The pricing has been astronomical,” Trump said to chief executives of some of the world’s biggest drugmakers, who came to Washington after Trump’s criticism of the industry earlier this month sent drug and biotechnology stocks plunging. “You folks have done a very great job over the years but we have to get the prices down.”
Trump has threatened to have the government negotiate prices directly with the industry on behalf of Medicare and Medicaid, which are some of the world’s biggest purchasers of health-care products and services and cover tens of millions of Americans. “Competition is key to lowering drug prices,” the president said.
At the same time, Trump promised to slash regulations, get new treatments to market faster at the Food and Drug Administration, and increase international competition. “We’re going to streamline FDA; we have a fantastic person” that will be announced to lead the agency soon, Trump said. He also promised to cut taxes on business and lure companies back to the U.S.
The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index fell 0.7 percent at 9:34 a.m. in New York, and the Standard and Poor’s 500 Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology & Life Sciences Index was down 0.5 percent.
Top CEOs
At the Tuesday meeting was Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America CEO Stephen Ubl, Merck & Co. CEO Ken Frazier, Eli Lilly & Co. CEO Dave Ricks, Celgene Corp. CEO Bob Hugin and others. They embraced Trump’s calls for lower taxes and fewer regulations.
“Some of the policies you’ve come out and suggested i think can help us do more -- tax, regulations,” said Lilly’s Ricks. Also at Tuesday’s White House meeting were Novartis AG CEO Joe Jimenez and Johnson & Johnson Worldwide Chairman of Pharmaceuticals Joaquin Duato.
The gathering with drug CEOs came after Trump’s said on Jan. 12 that the industry was “getting away with murder” and promised to act on drug prices. Since then, drugmakers have turned up their lobbying efforts with Congress as a potentially friendlier force that might counter Trump.
They’ve been meeting with Republicans and Democratic members of Congress, including those in leadership, to make their case for more measured proposals than Trump’s, according to Ron Cohen, chairman of the board at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, a Washington lobby group for drugmakers. “Bidding” is essentially akin to drug companies’ greatest fear: handing Medicare the power to negotiate prices. They’ve also met with people in the Trump administration, Cohen, chief executive officer of Acorda Therapeutics Inc., said in a telephone interview before the drug CEOs met with Trump.