Science
Reuters
Novartis CEO Joe Jimenez
Pharma CEOs are bracing for a presidential action on drug pricing.
Novartis CEO Joe Jimenez said that he expects President Donald Trump to lay out plans on drug pricing within the next three months, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.
What that will look like is still unclear. Jimenez told investors he expects "to have a solution that will preserve the
business model of how we innovate and discover and develop and launch into the US, as opposed to some of the bigger and more draconian elements that were discussed earlier," Bloomberg reports.
Bloomberg also reported that Allergan CEO Brent Saunders said he anticipates an executive action on drug pricing.
Trump has been speaking about drug prices since December 2016, specifically addressing the rising costs of prescription drugs that consumers have been facing in the last few years. At a January news conference, Trump said drugmakers are "getting away with murder."
Trump met with representatives from the industry at the end of January, where he called for faster regulatory review by the FDA and bringing jobs back to the US, but focused less on negotiating drug prices. He reiterated his interest in bringing down drug prices at the joint session of Congress on February 28, telling Congress he wants to "work to bring down the artificially high price of drugs ... immediately."
And in March, Trump tweeted that he's "working on a new system where there will be competition in the Drug Industry," but since then, Trump hasn't said much on the topic.