Drugmakers refuse to attend White House meeting after Trump issues executive orders on costs

[brooklynite]

Source: Politico

A White House meeting with top pharmaceutical executives that President Donald Trump promised for Tuesday is off, five industry sources familiar with discussions told POLITICO. Three said the drug-pricing discussion was canceled because the major drug lobbies, reeling from Friday’s cluster of executive orders on the topic, refused to send any members.

Drugmakers and Trump were slated to discuss an executive order, signed Friday but not yet released, that would order health officials to release a plan linking Medicare payments for certain medicines to lower costs paid abroad. The provision, known as a most-favored-nations rule, has been lambasted by the drug industry and some patient groups that say it would curb innovation and reduce drug access.

Trump said Friday that drugmakers would have a month to present a better option to the rule.

The drug lobbies PhRMA and BIO were reluctant to send representatives from their member companies — many of them multibillion dollar manufacturers of the world’s best-selling medicines and vaccines — after conflicting reports last week about whether the White House would include the rule and little information to date about what the new rule would look like, three people familiar with the discussions said.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/27/drugmakers-trump-meeting-canceled-382847

[marybourg]

1. He's the best dealmaker. Everyone says so.

[soothsayer]

2. Heehee everyone is going to end up hating him

[Mike 03]

3. Ooops. Unanticipated consequences.

This will be interesting.

[Freethinker65]

4. All for show.

[Rural_Progressive]

5. Isn't it amazing how some people

can suddenly grow a spine when they feel their profits are threatened? Civil liberties, the general welfare, protesting corruption etc. not so much, but threaten their bank accounts and they're happy to boycott.

[LiberalFighter]

6. How much you want to bet they have their top lawyers looking at the legality of his order?

[chriscan64]

7. Trump's worshipers must be so confused.

"So we boycott our life-saving medicines but eat Goya beans? Does Gas-X count?"

[MuseRider]

8. I assume Ivanka will vote for him?

Can you imagine being the people running his campaign? Ha Ha Ha Ha, I bet they never sleep and spend their days swigging Maalox or just drinking until they pass out.

[Midnightwalk]

9. This is confusing

I hate trump, but getting gouged by drug companies is a huge problem.

The provision, known as a most-favored-nations rule, has been lambasted by the drug industry and some patient groups that say it would curb innovation and reduce drug access.

They spend more money on marketing than R&D. We need rapid research on a covid 19 vaccine and that is happening. We need more research on new antibiotics and that isn’t happening.

I’d like better options for what ails me, but for the most part I’m willing to accept a slower pace of new treatments if that means everyone can get existing treatments at the same cost as other countries.

I don’t buy the baloney that all innovation stops if Americans aren’t getting screwed by drug companies.

[moonscape]

11. "slower pace of new treatments" hits me a bit

between the eyes because as a cancer patient I have benefited enormously from astonishing new therapies for my incurable-but-treatable cancer. Every line of new therapy keeps lots of us alive.

That said, I agree with you. And I don't think there's much risk that innovation will slow very much. They need to keep the train running for profits, regardless. Otherwise, they would've done so already regardless how dramatically the USA contributes to their bottom line.

[Bayard]

12. U.S. citizens pay for all this, "innovation"

R&D costs are passed on to consumers here, because the rest of the world's governments won't allow the exorbitant prices for meds.

[christx30]

15. I've been saying that for years.

We get taken to the cleaners while the health departments of other governments get sweetheart deals for their citizens.

[kacekwl]

10. The guy is useless. More

paper with his signature that means nothing.

[noneof_theabove]

13. changes needed for drug lobby..

Well ALL lobbyists need to be thrown out, money should not run the government, and they can go stand in line at each congress-critter home office like we have to do.

I have to start HEP-C treatment on Harvoni.
$700 for 84 pill [12 weeks] from Canada.
US pharmacies, $89,000.

Lucky my doctor has me scheduled with a clinic to be part of a survey/study for $0 - bless them all.

Lie #1
we had to spend beeelions of creating the drug - no you repurposed a lab and maybe hired new people.

Lie #2
it costs beeeelions to make - no you did not build a complete $100 million facility
pill presses and capsule fillers run using "dies" to stamp a power or
capsules that are colored and printed then fed into the machine.

Lie #3
It costs a lot to do in the US. No most of it may be made in other countries [Bayer is Germany] and the shipped
here for packaging.

And don't get me started on the Doctor who use the Oath of Hippocrates to wipe there ass.
They are only interested in how may people they can run by the "check out" booth.

Outside of HEP-C and liver cancer I'm in quite good health for 66.
I remember the doctor coming to the house, you won't get that today.

[Ligyron]

16. You're going to love that painless new treatment.

Especially if you've undergone any of the previous ones involving alpha interferon or even the once a week peg interferon. I wish you success in eliminating that virus and in dealing with the cancer.

[SWBTATTReg]

14. rump manages to screw up everything, EVERYTHING! Before he went off and penned yet ...

more executive orders, couldn't he sat down w/ the Drugmakers first, instead of dictating from the WH papal office what could and should have been done, especially with all of the possible side effects, the ramifications of any action first? Of course not, he alone, knows it all.