Trump vows crackdown on drug prices amid talk with pharma CEOs

President Donald Trump says he wants to lower drug prices and bring pharmaceutical companies back to the United States.

Trump met with executives at drugmakers Merck, Eli Lilly and others at the White House on Tuesday, telling assembled reporters "we're going to be changing a lot of the rules" with regard to drug approvals.

"We have to get prices down for a lot of reasons," Trump said.

The new president also took aim at what he called "global freeloading" whereby prices of drugs invented and manufactured by U.S. companies eventually get sold in other countries for a fraction of the original cost, either right away or once they have come off patent.

"Our trade policy will prioritize that foreign countries pay their fair share for U.S. manufactured drugs so our drug companies have greater financial resources to accelerate the development of new cures," he said. "Right now, it's very unfair what other countries are doing to us."

The president also vowed to reduce the prices of Medicare and Medicaid, saying he will soon name a "fantastic person" to head the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which oversees the myriad regulations that govern drugs sold in the U.S.

"You're going to get your products either approved or not approved but it's going to be a quick process," Trump said. "It's not going to take 15 years."

Ongoing issue

The pharmaceutical industry has been under fire since even before the election, with many recent stories of astronomical price hikes. Then in January, the new president served notice that the issue was also on his watch list, telling reporters Jan. 11 that he thinks the industry has been "getting away with murder" in terms of pricing.

Company executives, meanwhile, have tried to tread a careful line in defending their industry while expressing optimism that the United States would continue to reward scientific advances.

"If you provide true medical differentiation coupled with a strong intellectual property position, I think the U.S. will continue to reward this kind of innovation," Roche chief executive Severin Schwan told Reuters this month.

"If you don't offer that, then frankly I think it is the right thing that prices should come down."

"The pricing model has got to change," Mylan CEO Heather Bresch said earlier this month. "If anybody is walking away from this conference thinking it's business as usual, that's a mistake."