SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Time is up for 17 drugmakers that received letters from the Trump administration this summer. The letters gave the company 60 days to respond to the administration's demands to lower their prices. NPR pharmaceuticals correspondent Sydney Lupkin is here to fill us in on what's happening. Hi, Sydney.
SYDNEY LUPKIN, BYLINE: Hi, Scott.
DETROW: So remind us, what does the administration want from these companies?
LUPKIN: Yeah, the main goal is to lower the prices Americans pay for name-brand drugs and put them in line with what other developed countries pay, which is typically a lot less. There was an executive order pushing that idea in May, but in August the Trump administration wasn't satisfied with what it was hearing from the drug companies, so it sent letters to 17 of them with a list of demands - lower prices in Medicaid, for example. Launch new drugs at prices that match what people in other countries are paying. Sell some drugs directly to consumers at lower prices.
That said, this would all be voluntary, but the letters carried a threat saying, quote, "if you refuse to step up, we will deploy every tool in our arsenal to protect American families from continued abusive drug pricing practices."
DETROW: So what have the companies done with this?
LUPKIN: So I reached out to all 17 companies that got a letter. Most didn't respond to me or declined to comment. Others touted changes in press releases, like Bristol Myers Squibb. It said it will offer its blood thinner Eliquis and a plaque psoriasis drug directly to consumers at a discount. It also says it will launch its new schizophrenia drug in the U.K. at the same price it is in the U.S., which, by the way, is almost two grand a month. So no savings there for Americans. But overall, it doesn't sound like the Trump administration got the pledges of widespread price reductions it was hoping for. Juliette Cubanski is a Medicare drug pricing expert at the nonpartisan research group KFF.
JULIETTE CUBANSKI: This administration has a habit of kind of setting deadlines and blowing past them without anything really happening.
LUPKIN: She says now that the deadline is here, the administration might have to pivot to legislation or rulemaking to get what it wants.
DETROW: So what is our sense at this moment about what this means for consumers?
LUPKIN: It's going to take a little longer to figure that out. The companies may still do some things in response to the administration's pressure, and there are a few actions already, but they might not translate to lower prices at U.S. pharmacy counters. For example, after getting its letter in August, Eli Lilly said that it would raise the price of its Type 2 diabetes drug Mounjaro in the U.K. And Lilly was clear in its announcement this was basically because of the Trump administration. But that doesn't necessarily mean the price will go down here in the U.S.
DETROW: Then how do tariffs fit into all of this? Because that's been such a big theme of this year.
LUPKIN: The Trump administration is trying all kinds of things at the same time. It's pushing to get drug companies to build factories in the U.S. by tariffing some drug imports starting next month, and that could raise prices. Steve Ubl, the CEO of the drug company trade group PhRMA, wrote that its members committed to spending 500 billion on infrastructure in the U.S. over the next few years. But it's hard to know how the Trump administration's actions will play out because they're happening via executive order and public pressure. That's unlike legislation that gets scored by the Congressional Budget Office. In that case, you can see how much money it will cost or save taxpayers, and we just don't have that here.
DETROW: Got it. That is NPR pharmaceuticals correspondent Sydney Lupkin. Thank you so much.
LUPKIN: You bet.
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