Lower drug prices?

Axios - The White House's executive order to lower drug prices is largely an exercise in applying leverage, rather than actual policymaking — and it may not amount to much, experts said.

President Trump says his directive will dramatically reduce drug costs for U.S. consumers, and quickly. But there are few details as to how he plans to accomplish that.

• Instead, Trump appears to be adapting the playbook he's used on universities over Gaza protests: Threaten administrative actions that could be financially painful, set a deadline — in this case 30 days — and then see what happens.
• "It reminds us of how in President Trump's first term he was 'all bark, no bite' on drug pricing," Chris Meekins, a managing director at Raymond James, wrote in an investor note Monday.
• "We don't completely discount the possibility that the EO could eventually lead to some one-off deals, but the order itself is so vague that it's difficult to predict the exact impact it may have," Capital Alpha's Kim Monk wrote in a note.

The order calls for drugmakers to voluntarily cut prices or face the threat of a "most favored nation" pricing regime that would peg the cost of their medicines to what's paid in other wealthy nations, where they often sell for less.

• The timeline for the administration to actually secure lower drug prices is slippery. Trump posted on social media Sunday that American consumers would "almost immediately" see their drug prices fall by 30% to 80%.
• In reality, it would take much longer than that. The executive order gives administration officials 30 days to come up with new target drug prices and to communicate them to companies. If the companies don't agree to lower prices voluntarily, HHS will kick off a rulemaking process and other enforcement actions — all of which take considerable amounts of time. Read more