President Trump sent letters Thursday to 17 of the world’s largest drug companies, telling them to take more steps to slash the prices of prescription drugs to match the lowest price in certain foreign countries.
The letters represent an escalation of the administration’s push for lower drug prices by launching a “most favored nation” model, which ties the prices of prescription medicines in the U.S. to the lowest found among comparably wealthy nations.
Trump demanded the companies immediately cut the prices they charge Medicaid patients for existing drugs and stipulate that they will not charge Americans more than prices offered overseas for new drugs.
The White House said the administration would use trade policy to support manufacturers in raising prices internationally to match the U.S. prices, so long as increased revenues abroad are reinvested directly into lowering prices for American patients and taxpayers.
Trump told manufacturers that if they “refuse to step up,” the federal government “will deploy every tool in our arsenal to protect American families from continued abusive drug pricing practices.”
He gave the companies 60 days to comply.
Letters were sent to AbbVie, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, EMD Serono, Genentech, Gilead, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Regeneron and Sanofi.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the new moves during a briefing, and Trump then posted the letters to his Truth Social account.
In the letters, Trump said none of the proposals he has heard from drug companies about bringing down high prices have been acceptable.
“Most proposals … promised more of the same: shifting blame and requesting policy changes that would result in billions of dollars in handouts to the industry,” the letters stated.
Moving forward, Trump said the only solutions he will accept are those that provide “American families immediate relief from the vastly inflated drug prices and an end to the free ride of American innovation by European and other developed nations.”
The letters said companies must also establish a direct-to-consumer sales method so manufacturers can “cut out middlemen” and sell drugs at prices that match what private insurers pay.
A growing number of drug companies — including Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk — have already started selling anti-obesity drugs directly to consumers at lower prices to patients who pay without insurance.