Blockered letters, addressed among others to Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, Astrazeneca, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi, were published Thursday by the American president on his social social platform.
US President Donald Trump sent emails to 17 pharmaceutical companies on Thursday to ask them to lower the prices of medicines sold in the United States under penalty of reprisals, the White House said. “He signed 17 letters to pharmaceutical companies”said spokesperson Karoline Leavitt at a press conference, before reading that addressed to the CEO of Eli Lilly, David Ricks.
The president published in the process, on his Truth Social platform, all the letters intended for the leaders of Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, Astrazeneca, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi, among others. “If you refuse to act, we will deploy all the means at our disposal to protect American families against abusive practices in terms of drug prices”he wrote in these almost identical letters. He gives them until September 29 to present “Firm commitments” in this sense.
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On May 12, Donald Trump had announced a plan to considerably reduce the prices of medicines in the United States by lining them over those paid by other major economies, a promise that he had failed to hold during his first mandate. “The prices of certain prescription drugs and pharmaceutical products will drop almost immediately from 50 to 80 or 90%” For the Americans, he then proclaimed.
2.5 times more expensive than in France
He mainly intended to obtain these spectacular discounts through negotiations with pharmaceutical groups, opposed in the past to price reductions. Medication prices in the United States are among the highest in the world and surpass those applied to their neighbors and in Europe. According to a study by the RAND Corporation, Americans pay an average of 2.5 times more for prescription drugs than the French for example. Donald Trump was committed to reducing this gap during his presidential campaign.
On the New York Stock Exchange, the pharmaceutical sector was somewhat heckled by this announcement. Eli Lilly released 1.33%, Merck retreated 3.59%and Novo Nordisk dug his losses (-4.65%). The Astrazeneca (-3.26%) and Pfizer (-1.42%) laboratories were also shunned.