UNITED STATES—President Donald Trump signed four executive orders geared toward lowering drug pricing for Americans on Friday, July 24, The White House reported.
President Trump signed the executive orders requesting Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to take several actions to give American patients lower costs on prescription drugs, including insulin and epinephrine, and to ensure Americans can access to the lowest price possible for their drugs. The White House published the 4 orders on their website:
“The first Order directs federally qualified health centers to pass along massive discounts on insulin and epinephrine received from drug companies to certain low-income Americans.”
“The second Order will allow State plans for safe importation of certain drugs, authorize the re-importation of insulin products made in the United States, and create a pathway for widespread use of personal importation waivers at authorized pharmacies in the United States.”
“The third Order will prohibit secret deals between drug manufacturers and pharmacy benefit manager middlemen, ensuring patients directly benefit from available discounts at the pharmacy counter.”
“The fourth and final Order ensures that the United States pays the lowest price available in economically comparable countries for Medicare Part B drugs.The United States often pays 80% more for these drugs than other developed countries. It’s time to reduce the price Americans pay for these costly Part B medications, and absent successful negotiations with drug company executives this Order will be implemented on August 24.”
FDA Commissioner Stephen M. Hahn, M.D. said that access to affordable medicines is a public health priority and making the drug market more competitive to address high costs are top priorities of the Administration, HHS and FDA.
“We’ll work closely with HHS to implement the Executive Order as it relates to FDA. We remain committed to advancing the policies outlined in the Safe Importation Action Plan, as quickly as possible, as we continue our broader work to increase drug competition to benefit American consumers,” said Hahn.
