Natalie Andrews
Appearances
WSJ What’s News
Nasdaq Enters Bull Market After U.S.-China Temporarily Slash Tariffs
We know the goal is to lower the price of prescription drugs. Consumers in the United States pay a lot more in many cases for prescription drugs. Elsewhere in developed nations, you have a lot of countries where with universal health care systems, and that has allowed them to negotiate and block with drug companies. The United States doesn't have that.
WSJ What’s News
Nasdaq Enters Bull Market After U.S.-China Temporarily Slash Tariffs
And so we see consumers paying all across the board on drug prices. So this is a campaign promise from Donald Trump. But it's an executive order. And one thing, they're not legislation. They're not mandates from Congress and they're not a law. So it first relies on drug companies to lower the prices themselves and then has some teeth in telling HHS to go after the drug companies or commerce.
WSJ What’s News
Nasdaq Enters Bull Market After U.S.-China Temporarily Slash Tariffs
And Commerce Department has some levies and levers they can pull there. But it will be difficult for the president to do what he says, which he says this is equalizing drug prices across the world.
WSJ What’s News
Nasdaq Enters Bull Market After U.S.-China Temporarily Slash Tariffs
Consumers are not going to see anything right away. But it is putting a process into play behind the scenes of telling the U.S. trade representative and the Commerce Department to look at any unreasonable and discriminatory practices in foreign countries. It also is telling HHS Secretary Ross Robert F. Kennedy to take the next 30 days to work with pharmaceutical companies on lowering prices.
WSJ What’s News
Nasdaq Enters Bull Market After U.S.-China Temporarily Slash Tariffs
That could include talking to the pharmaceutical companies and saying, hey, we've done an analysis and you're charging us X and everywhere else you're charging these countries Y. We need you to bring that in. If you don't, we're going to use powers that we have through the FDA, powers that we have as the country's health agency to make your life more difficult.
WSJ What’s News
Nasdaq Enters Bull Market After U.S.-China Temporarily Slash Tariffs
It is not happy, the pharma industry, about this. They're saying it's going to hurt consumers, that government price setting is bad for American patients, that it could limit choices. The pharma industry, as Kennedy noted in the Roosevelt Room at the White House today, they are a strong lobbying organization that has a lot of money behind it that does focus in research and development.
WSJ What’s News
Nasdaq Enters Bull Market After U.S.-China Temporarily Slash Tariffs
Consumers are not going to see anything right away. But it is putting a process into play behind the scenes of telling the U.S. trade representative and the Commerce Department to look at any unreasonable and discriminatory practices in foreign countries.
WSJ What’s News
Nasdaq Enters Bull Market After U.S.-China Temporarily Slash Tariffs
And one reason why they have a lot of lobbyists is to get that research and development money to get those government grants. They're also a powerful force in Washington.