President Donald Trump had made his intention clear in a Time magazine interview in December 2016, mentioning that he wishes to do something about high drug prices.
Well, he is already doing something and legislation is not required for it.
At his January press conference last week, his first since the elections, the President went off script and gave a sharp shoulder to the pharmaceutical industry referring to the industry as "getting away with murder" when it comes to prices. Here is an excerpt of Trump's comment on the pharmaceutical industry:
The pressure from the President and the public opinion on the issue are already transforming the industry in a way that Republicans or Democrats by themselves have been unable to do. The industry is more aware of the sensitive pricing issue and shifting towards self-regulation.
We had pointed out few instances of a shift in pharmaceutical industry thinking in a blog post in early December, and also in a recent article, Biotechnology: Is 2017 A Bonanza Year?. Last month, at a healthcare summit, Regeneron (REGN) CEO protested against the irresponsible price increases, referring to them as "ridiculous." It should be noted that Regeneron knows something about maintaining prices; it has not increased the price of Eylea, its dominant treatment for age-related macular degeneration, since its introduction in 2012. Allergan (AGN) CEO Brent Saunders, who has been a leading voice in price self-regulation and shifting the debate from prices-to-cures, has also promised to limit price increases to single digits.
Just a day prior to the Trump press conference, John Carroll, Editor of Endpoints, a leading Biotech news site, hosted a drug-price forum of pharmaceutical executives at the JP Morgan (JPM) investment conference in San Francisco. In the discussion, there was more evidence of a shift towards self-regulation. AbbVie (
