NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Thursday, February 2, 2017

President Donald Trump met with leading drugmakers at the White House on Tuesday, jawboning them to produce their medications in the United States and to cut “astronomical” drug prices.

Trump also blasted foreign countries, which he said have been “freeloading” on the United States with price controls that limit what their own citizens can be charged for medications. And he vowed to use the purchasing power of the U.S. government, the world’s largest drug purchaser, to push the price of medications down.

“We have to get the prices way down,” Trump said. “We have to get lower prices, we have to get even better innovation, and I want you to move your companies back to the United States. I want you to manufacture in the United States.”

“You have to get your companies back here, we have to make products back” here, Trump said. Participants in the meeting included the CEOs of Merck, Amgen, Eli Lilly, Novartis and Johnson & Johnson, as well as the head of the trade group PhRMA.

Trump told them he wants to make it easier for pharmaceutical companies to win regulatory approval for their products.