By Patrick Wingrove and Susan Heavey
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump plans to sign a wide-reaching executive order on Monday directing drugmakers to lower the prices of their medicines to align with what other countries pay.
White House officials said the government will give drugmakers price targets in the next 30 days, and will take further action to lower prices if those companies do not make “significant progress” towards those goals within six months of the order being signed.
Trump said on social media on Monday that drug prices would be cut by 59%. The estimate followed comments he made on Sunday that he would sign the order pursuing “most favored nation” pricing, resulting in cuts of 30% to 80%.
The White House officials did not specify any targets.
The executive order differed from what drugmakers had been expecting. Four lobbyist sources told Reuters they were expecting an executive order that called for “most favored nation” pricing on a subset of Medicare drugs.
Trump’s order also directs the government to consider facilitating direct-to-consumer purchasing programs that would sell drugs at the prices other countries pay.
The United States pays the highest prices for prescription drugs, often nearly three times more than other developed nations. Trump tried in his first term to bring the United States in line with other countries but was blocked by the courts.
(Reporting by Patrick Wingrove, Michael Erman and Susan Heavey; Editing by Caroline Humer, Mark Porter and Alistair Bell)
