Though details remain scant, the pending order is expected to be the latest effort in President Donald Trump’s campaign to bring drug prices down to the same level as economically similar countries.
The White House has received a drug pricing policy proposal from the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The package is currently pending regulatory review, according to a government site.
Details around the proposed rule, titled “Global Benchmark for Efficient Drug Pricing (GLOBE) Model,” remain scant. Reuters, citing two anonymous lobbyists, noted that the policy could mirror a 2020 executive order signed by President Donald Trump during his first term, requiring Medicare to match payments to the lowest price of a particular drug in a similarly developed country.
In a statement to The New York Times on Thursday, an HHS spokesperson said the department does not comment on “potential future regulations.”
Trump has long targeted the price gap that exists between drugs in the U.S. and other countries. In May, he revived his Most Favored Nation rule, a price control policy that seeks to lower drug costs in the U.S. to the same level as in economically similar countries. “We expect, obviously, the United States as the largest purchaser to be getting the best deal across the world,” a White House official said at the time.
However, because an executive order isn’t law, the Trump administration has had to leverage other methods to incentivize pharma companies to comply with the proposed rule.
In July, for instance, the FDA launched the pilot run of its recently announced Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher program, which aims to shorten regulatory review times to 1–2 months for companies that align with certain national priorities. For its inaugural batch, the FDA named increasing drug affordability as one of these priorities, paying particular focus to companies that lower the “price of a drug or drugs consistent with Most Favored Nation pricing.”
A few days later, Trump wrote directly to the CEOs of 17 Big Pharma companies, asking them to comply with the Most Favored Nation scheme “within the next 60 days.” That deadline would be on Sept. 29.
Among the recipients of Trump’s direct appeal is Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan, who said in an interview last week that the pharma is “working with the [U.S.] government to find constructive solutions” to lower drug prices in the country. Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks also received Trump’s letter, and the company last month announced that it would raise drug prices in Europe to “align prices across developed countries.”
