White House ready to trim drug prices
Executive order outlining means being prepared
President Donald Trump’s administration is preparing an executive order aimed at lowering U.S. drug costs, according to people familiar with the matter, a move that could come within weeks on a campaign issue that has been largely left out of Republican legislative efforts in Congress.
Top health and budget officials in the administration will meet Friday to discuss the issue, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the session is private. Trump sought recommendations from the nation’s health agencies on reducing medication costs, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price told senators last week.
Value-based price
One policy being discussed for inclusion in the order is expressing support for value-based agreements, a drug industrybacked proposal in which pharmaceutical companies and health insurers develop arrangements to pay for products depending on how well they work, one of the people said.
Trump has excoriated drugmakers for “getting away with murder” following high-profile instances of companies raising costs on decades-old treatments that attracted congressional attention. In one now-infamous case, Turing Pharmaceuticals AG, then led by Martin Shkreli, bought the rights to sell a decades-old anti-infective drug called Daraprim and raised the price to $750 a pill from $13.50. Mylan NV also caused a furor after raising the price of its lifesaving EpiPen 400 percent to $600 for two shots of the allergy-fighting medicine.
Ninio Fetalvo, a White House spokesman, declined to comment on a potential executive order..
Two-tiered action
The recommendations from the officials might be used to craft a first executive order on drug prices that could come out soon, according to the people, followed by a second, more extensive order later. While executive orders can’t change laws, Trump could use the efforts to direct agencies to explore regulatory changes and set direction.
“I’m very interested in the executive order,” Sen. Chuck Grassley said in a statement Thursday.
He would like the administration to consider ensuring drugs are classified correctly under the Medicaid health program for the poor. The proposal would get at a tactic used by some drugmakers that allowed Mylan to overcharge U.S. taxpayers by as much as $1.27 billion over the last decade by classifying the EpiPen as a generic drug rather than a brandname treatment.
Ways to lower costs
The president has threatened several times to force drugmakers to bid for government business as a way to reduce prices. He’s also talked about letting consumers import drugs from other countries with lower prices. Neither of those policies, which would likely require a change in law to be implemented in a meaningful way, are in drafts of the orders, according to a person familiar with the effort.
The FDA has outlined policies to target drug pricing. Commissioner Scott Gottlieb has said the agency might push new generic-drug applications to the front of the line in cases where there are fewer than three competing generic manufacturers, which could raise competition and lower costs for some treatments.