President Trump has pledged to take action to combat the opioid epidemic and reduce drug prices, but one year into his tenure, advocates and industry have grown skeptical of his promises.
During his State of the Union speech Tuesday, Trump said one of his top priorities is “fixing the injustice of high drug prices.
”When the new head of the Department of Health and Human Services was sworn in on Jan. 29, Trump said prescription drug prices would come “rocketing down.”
But advocates said they have heard it all before, and Trump has not acted on most of the drug pricing promises he made.
“No more words. Action. The clock is ticking,” David Mitchell, president of Patients for Affordable Drugs, said after Trump’s State of the Union address.
An administration official said Trump’s first State of the Union “made clear lowering drug prices and combating the opioid crisis are priorities for his administration. The President looks forward to ongoing work with his Cabinet, Congress and local leaders on the best path to tackle these issues.”
Trump’s tough talk on drug manufacturers dates back to his 2016 presidential campaign.
He promised to stand up to drug companies, and famously blasted the pharmaceutical industry as “getting away with murder” with steep drug prices.
During the campaign, he backed allowing Medicare to negotiate directly with drug companies, as well as to expand importation of cheaper medicine.
The pharmaceutical industry was worried. When Trump mentioned drug prices, stocks fell.
The industry’s top lobbying group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), increased its lobbying expenditures from $20 million in 2016 to $25.4 million in 2017.
The biggest jump in spending came in the first quarter of 2017, when Trump repeated his “getting away with murder” comment. PhRMA upped its lobbying expenditures by 35 percent, from $6 million in the first quarter of 2016 to $8 million in the first quarter of 2017.
But Trump has not mentioned those ideas since.
“I suppose that when it comes to Trump’s comments on high drug prices, he’s become the boy who cried wolf,” an industry lobbyist said.
Advocates are hopeful that Trump will support the Creating and Restoring Equal Access to Equivalent Samples (Creates) Act, legislation intended to prevent branded drug companies from using tactics to delay competition from cheaper generic drugs.
They said Trump supporting the Creates Act…
The post Trump’s vows to take on drug prices, opioids draw skepticism appeared first on FeedBox.