President Trump signed an executive order this morning intended to lower prescription drug prices by 30% to 80% through a “Most Favored Nation” (MFN) policy, which would require the U.S. to pay no more than the lowest price paid by any country globally. A similar effort was made in the closing weeks of the first Trump term with an interim final rule issued by HHS, but was blocked in court due to opposition from the pharmaceutical industry, which argued it could disrupt federal health programs.
The White House is expected to provide price targets in the next 30 days, and will take further action if drugmakers do not make “significant progress” towards those goals within six months. The order comes a week after a separate executive order was signed to promote domestic manufacturing of pharmaceuticals by streamlining the permitting processes that go into building domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing sites.