President Donald Trump made reducing drug prices a key promise during his election campaign, repeatedly accusing drugmakers of “getting away with murder.” At the end of May, he promised that drug companies would be announcing “massive” voluntary drug price cuts within two weeks.
Few cuts followed, and an Associated Press analysis of brand-name prescription drug prices shows it’s mostly been business as usual for drugmakers since Trump took office.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, the administration’s point person for efforts to lower drug prices, conceded in a recent AP interview that it will be a while before drug prices fall. He noted the complexity of the medicine market and its incentives for drugmakers to boost prices so they and middlemen make bigger profits.
“I am not counting on the altruism of pharma companies lowering their prices,” said Azar, who was a senior executive in Eli Lilly & Co.’s U.S. business for a decade when it dramatically raised prices for its insulin products.
Written by The Associated Press, CBS News
