Azar ramps up rhetoric in pushing drug price blueprint
After President Donald Trump’s plan to lower drug prices was criticized as being too soft on the pharmaceutical industry, HHS Secretary Alex Azar has begun utilizing Trump’s own combative approach to get drug companies to take the push to lower drug costs more seriously.
“It’s carrot and stick,” one person familiar with the strategy told Politico. “You’re with us or against us. It’s your call, but being against us is not going to stop us.”
Azar, a former pharma executive himself, has said the administration “will keep turning up the pressure” if the drug industry doesn’t work with HHS to address affordability or lower prices themselves. Voluntary actions will have to make the majority of short-term progress on the plan, a source told Politico, since the bigger changes will require action by Congress.
For Democrats who called the plan a gift to pharma and stock analysts who said pharma giants had little to be concerned about, Azar has been more direct, saying those critics either don’t understand the plan or simply don’t want to give it any credit.
The analysts themselves remain unconvinced.
“The solutions he’s suggested are not very different from everything else CMS threw out before,” said Ronny Gal, a financial analyst who follows the pharmaceutical industry for Sanford C. Bernstein. “The comments I’m getting from industry, and even just my own thinking, is that that is going to get gummed up in the usual Washington slowdown."
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John joined TriMed in 2016, focusing on healthcare policy and regulation. After graduating from Columbia College Chicago, he worked at FM News Chicago and Rivet News Radio, and worked on the state government and politics beat for the Illinois Radio Network. Outside of work, you may find him adding to his never-ending graphic novel collection.