President Trump Orders Pharmaceutical Companies To Cut Drug Prices Within 60 Days

President Donald Trump on Thursday said he asked major pharmaceutical companies to take steps to cut U.S. drug prices within the next 60 days.

Trump posted individual letters he sent 17 drugmakers, including Eli Lilly, GSK, Pfizer, Regeneron, Merck, and Novo Nordisk.

Trump threatened to “deploy ever tool in our arsenal to protect American families from continued abusive drug pricing practices” if companies refuse to comply. The letters come after Trump in May signed an executive order reviving a controversial plan, known as the “most favored nation” policy, that aims to slash drug costs by tying the prices of some medicines in the U.S. to the significantly lower ones abroad.

It was Trump’s latest effort to try to rein in U.S. prescription drug prices, which are two to three times higher on average than those in other developed nations – and up to 10 times more than in certain countries, according to the Rand Corp., a public policy think tank.

Trump called on drugmakers to provide the lowest price offered in other developed nations – or what he calls the most-favored-nation price – to every single Medicaid patient. He also asked companies to contract with the U.S. to guarantee that Medicare, Medicaid and commercial payers receive most-favored-nation prices on all new drugs upon launch and moving forward.