Trumps Drug Pricing Reform

Source-Forbes- With HHS Secretary (and former Eli Lilly executive) Alex Azar by his side President Trump stepped to the podium in the gloriously sunny White House rose garden yesterday afternoon and promised that we are going to see prices go down and it will be a beautiful thing." Based upon the actual blueprint which remains a work in progress that may well be the case. But if it proves to be so it will not be because the administration is wielding the metaphorical meat cleaver to cut prices by government edict and risk gutting our biomedical innovation engine. US President Donald Trump delivers remarks with Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar (R) on reducing drug costs in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington DC on May 11 2018. (Photo by NICHOLAS KAMM / AFP) (Photo credit should read NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images) Instead and it must be said uncharacteristic for Trump he appears to have listened to sober serious well informed folks like Azar and FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb and opted to endorse a series of incremental policy and market-based reforms that will eliminate many of the existing incentives that compel drug manufacturers to push list prices ever higher.