President Trump signed an executive order on Monday asking drug manufacturers to voluntarily reduce the prices of key medications in the United States.
But the order does not quote an obvious legal authority to demand lower prices. The order said the administration would consider taking regulatory actions or importing medications from other countries in the future if medication manufacturers do not comply.
It was a kind of victory for the pharmaceutical industry, which had a leg reinforcement for a policy that would be much more detrimental to their interests.
Last week, Trump promoted an announcement that was “as great as possible.” And on Sunday night, the order increased in a social publication of the truth, writing that it would link the prices of American medicines with those of the countries in pairs under a more favored “nation price” model, a policy that tried unsuccessfully in its first mandate for a small set of drugs in Medicare.
His executive order on Monday does not do that. Pharmaceutical actions increased Monday in the news.
Mr. Trump’s executive order occurred only a few hours after the Republicans of the House of Representatives offered a wide set of changes in medical care policies that around $ 700 billion of medications and the markets of Obamacare approximately one decade and the Congress of 8.6 of Willeran declined to include any disposition to directly limit the prices of the medications in that package.
The executive order also asked federal agencies to investigate why European countries obtain lower prices and push them to pay more. The Trump administration has limited leverage to increase prices in Europe.
“I’m not calling pharmaceutical companies,” Trump said Monday before signing the order. “I am really calling countries than pharmaceutical companies.”
With his executive order, Mr. Trump chose not to propose measures that could have had more teeth, such as asking for his administration to work with Congress on legislation or writing regulations to change how government health programs pay for some drugs.
“The executive order reads more as an aspirational statement than as a serious attempt to initiate a policy change,” said Amet Sarpatwari, who studies pharmaceutical policy at Harvard’s Faculty of Medicine.
Many Republican legislators oppose controls on medicines prices, but Trump has criticized the current system, in which pharmaceutical companies charge the United States significantly higher prices than the rest of the world.
“We are going to help pharmaceutical companies with the other nations,” he said at the Monday event.
Trump threatened to use commercial policy to promote European countries to pay more for prescribed medications. But pharmaceutical companies are already locked in contracts with governments, and if they try to charge more for new medications, European countries can resist covering the issue. And the highest prices in Europe would not necessarily lead to lower prices in the United States, drug prices experts warned.
In his first mandate, Trump tried unsuccessfully to promulgate a more substantive policy to reduce some medicines paid by Medicare, the Health Insurance Program for Americans who are about 65 years old or have disabilities. That plan would have been applied only to 50 medications, administered in clinics and hospitals. A Federal Court blocked it, ruling that the administration had jumped the steps in the policy formulation process.
It is not clear that politics could have approved the legal meeting if the book pursued the leg. In interviews, some experts said Trump would have needed Congress to approve a law.
The White House had caused the announcement as a seismic. Monday’s executive order, in its confrontation, demands broader changes than those that Mr. Trump proposed in his first term, affecting more drugs and all Americans, not just some patients with medications. But it lacks a clear mechanism to promulgate price reductions.
“It almost sounds like: we will only ask for lower prices and see how it goes,” said Stacie Dusetzina, a professor of health policy at Vanderbilt University who studies the prices of medicines. Except for a more substantive action, he said: “I would not anticipate that the prices of medicines fall in the near future.”
The order said that if the initial actions did not progress enough to reduce the prices of the drugs of the United States, the Trump administration can “propose a ruler plan to impose more favorable prices in the nation.”
Democrats have introduced numerous bills so that US prices are more in line with those of their foreign partners, and the legislation approved by the Biden administration allows you to Medicar negotiate the direct price of a limited drug set used in the program. In general, policies that would reduce drug prices are very popular among Republican and democratic voters.
The pharmaceutical industry has also prepared to punish tariffs on imported medicines, which Trump has promised to impose soon. Rates will love more than the prices of medicines in the United States and reduce the profits of drug manufacturers, even if they could transmit some of the additional costs.
Pharmaceutical investors felt relieved that Trump did not propose the most substantive policy he had threatened. After falling into trade prior to trade, pharmaceutical actions recovered when Trump’s move details were clear. Merck shares increased by 6 percent on Monday. Pfizer closed in almost 4 percent. A narrower biotechnology actions increased by 4 percent.
“Better than feared,” Wall Street Bank Jefferies analysts wrote in a note to investors. “More bark than bitten,” said TD Cowen analysts.
Speaking on Monday, lobbying groups for drug manufacturers said that the United States should not look in other countries how much pays for drugs.
But the main industry group, Phrma, also applauded Mr. Trump for threatening to use trade negotiations to boost foreign governments “to pay their fair part for medications.”
“American patients should not pay the bill for global innovation,” said Stephen J. UBL, executive director of Phrma.
The prices of brand medications in the United States are three times higher, on average, than those of even nations.
Drug manufacturers generally design their commercial strategy around the substantial profits they bring from the United States.
Pharmaceutical companies argue that the highest prices in the USA.
In other rich countries, the Government generally pays prescription medications for the entire population, negotiating substantial discounts from medication manufacturers. Many other nations make their own comparisons with prices in even countries to help determine what they are willing to pay.
But in the United States, the government has very little formal participation to establish drug prices, apart from the Biden era program for a limited number of medications in Medicare. The Trump administration now supervises that program.
This month, Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, and Senator Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, introduced a bill that would limit drug prices in the United States to an average prices paid by a group of even countries.
In an interview, Mr. Welch said he agreed with Trump that Americans pay too much and that international comparisons could help establish more just prices. But he believes that Congress needs to address the problem to guarantee a lasting policy.
“It’s really important to do this legislatively,” he said.
Trump’s executive order gave his administration a month to tell the pharmaceutical companies the “price objectives” volunteers for certain medications. A White House official said that the drugs to lose weight known as LPG-1S-A popular drug class such as Zepbound and Wogovy would like that they will probably be among them.
Trump complained at his press conference on Monday that “The Fat Shot” costs much less in Europe than in the United States.
In most cases, Americans can obtain these medications for $ 500 per month without using insurance. European collection pharmacies a few hundred dollars less. The majority of European patients pay their pocket for medicines because their national health systems generally do not cover them.
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