Earlier this week was the deadline imposed by President Trump on the Most Favored Nations (MFN) executive order. Yesterday, the White House and Pfizer each released press statements on a deal regarding MFN.
Each company makes its own decision on how they set prices for medicines.
Our industry is committed to working with the Trump administration to strengthen American leadership in biopharmaceutical innovation and lower costs for patients. That is why this week we announced three major actions our industry is taking, including $500 billion in new infrastructure investments, financial support for 10 million patients struggling to afford medicines and launching a new website to make it easier for patients and businesses to connect to direct purchase programs offered by manufacturers.
Today’s announcement does not do enough to address the real drivers of higher prices in the U.S. PBMs get big discounts on medicines while charging patients full price. Hospitals abuse the 340B program to mark up drug prices by 700% or more. Addressing these abusive practices would dramatically lower drug prices for U.S. patients.
Similarly, the Trump administration is right to focus on foreign countries free riding off American innovation, but the administration needs to do more to address unfair practices abroad. Other countries routinely undervalue medicines and limit their citizens’ access to the newest treatments. Most Favored Nation policies that would import these same prices into the U.S. would result in less access to treatments and cures and reduced investment in manufacturing and R&D. It happened in Europe. We don’t want it to happen here.
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