by Thomas Meek
LONDON, Feb 1 (APM) - Newly elected U.S. president Donald Trump has pledged to take action on high drug prices, increase pharma jobs and streamline regulation after his first meeting with industry leaders.
The White House released a statement on Tuesday that outlined the three main commitments for Trump after discussions with Stephen Ubl, president and chief executive of trade body PhRMA, and six board members representing some of the biggest pharma companies in the country.
On drug prices, Trump said: "You folks have done a terrific job over the years, but we have to get prices down for a lot of reasons. We have no choice."
He said that this was necessary in particular for the national health insurance programmes Medicare and Medicaid.
"The U.S. drug companies have produced extraordinary results for our country but the pricing has been astronomical for our country."
Drug prices were a central issue of the recent election campaign, with both Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton and Trump saying they would take action on bringing prices down after some high-profile cases of companies inflating costs by significant amounts.
Earlier this month, Trump said that pharma companies are "getting away with murder" in what they charge the government for medicines (APMMA 51284).
Elsewhere in his statement, Trump said his administration was also going to work on bringing drugs to market faster by "streamlining" the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which approves what drugs are safe and effective for use in the country.
This would be led by a new, unnamed head of the agency who will be appointed soon, said Trump.
"We have a fantastic person that I think I we'll be naming fairly soon, he's going to streamline the FDA and you're going to get your products either approved or not approved but it's going to be a quick process. It's not going to take 15 years."
The president also said he hopes to bring the price of drug development down, saying it was "crazy" that the cost of bringing a product to market can reach $2.5 billion.
Trump added that he would cut unnamed regulations to make it easier for companies to set up and run in the U.S. in order to create new jobs.
"I know you have some problems where you cannot even think about opening up new plants and then you can't get approval for the plant and then you can't get approval to make the drug."
In a post on the meeting, PhRMA's Ubl said the discussions were "positive", highlighting talks on advancing stronger trade agreements and reforming the U.S. tax code to spur investment and job creation in the U.S.
"We believe if these policies are enacted, it will translate to up to 350,000 new jobs over the next 10 years as a result of growth in the biopharmaceutical industry."
On the issue of drug pricing, he said: "The current system needs to evolve to enable the private sector to lead the move to a value-driven health care system.
"To do this, we need to reform existing laws and regulations that are currently preventing private companies from negotiating better deals and paying for medicines based on the value they provide to patients and our healthcare system."
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