Trump gives pharmaceutical companies 60 days to lower drug prices in the United States

U.S. President Donald Trump sent a letter on Thursday to 17 pharmaceutical company CEOs giving them a 60-day deadline, which expires on September 29, to lower drug prices. Eli Lilly, Sanofi, Regeneron, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, and AstraZeneca were among the companies that received the letter.

The president demands the implementation of several measures, including that the United States have "Most Favored Nation" prices for Medicaid enrollees (the US health program for low-income people), and that the same price be guaranteed for new medicines.

In the same letter, Reuters news agency highlights, Trump also says that pharmaceutical companies "should return excess revenue" abroad resulting from price increases in other countries, as a way to offset the lower prices that would be charged in the United States, something that would be achieved through an agreement with the US government.

The minister also argues that pharmaceutical companies should not offer other developed countries better prices than those charged in the United States, and stated that the US government would find a way to eliminate intermediaries and provide medicines directly to patients, as long as pharmaceutical companies charge lower prices in the United States, as they already do in other countries.

Trump's demand is in line with the executive order he signed in May, Reuters reports, in which he advocated lowering drug prices to a level equivalent to those in other countries.

CNN highlights that the US administration has reported that the price of some drugs in the United States is up to "three times more expensive" than in other developed countries, adding that the same executive order, from May, set a 30-day deadline for the Department of Health and Human Services to set drug price targets.

It should be remembered that Trump had already threatened to impose a 200% tariff if the pharmaceutical industry did not lower its prices in the United States.

Trump says industry “promises more of the same”

Trump also said, via the social network Truth Social, that most of the proposals the U.S. government received from pharmaceutical companies "promised more of the same," opting to "shift blame" or request policy changes that "would result in millions more in donations" to the industry. The president added that the "only thing he would accept" from drugmakers is "a commitment that guarantees American families" "immediate relief" from "extremely inflated drug prices" and an "end to the free ride on American innovation by European and other developed countries."

Spencer Perlman, director responsible for healthcare at Veda Partners, was quoted by CNN as saying that Donald Trump "has no legal authority or regulatory tools" to require drugmakers to sell their products to the United States as a "Most Favored Nation." However, Perlman noted that the U.S. government may attempt to establish a "mandatory test" to ensure these lower prices are reflected in Medicare and Medicaid programs.