Drugmakers Brace for Trump's Proposals to Tackle U.S. Prices

So far, the president has taken no action on the issue. The Trump administration's proposed 2018 budget contains almost no major proposals that would impact drug prices.

At the White House sessions, drugmakers have suggested ideas such as removing barriers to drug-price contracts based on the results that medicines deliver for patients, Jimenez told investors in Boston on Wednesday.

Novartis expects "to have a solution that will preserve the business model of how we innovate and discover and develop and launch into the U.S., as opposed to some of the bigger and more draconian elements that were discussed earlier," the CEO of the Swiss pharmaceutical giant said.

Allergan's Saunders said last year that the company would increase prices for its drugs no more than once a year and in increments of less than 10%, after a few pharmaceutical makers found themselves in the spotlight for what critics called exorbitant price hikes, bringing scrutiny to the entire industry.

"My sense is that we should expect the Trump administration to continue to talk about and look for ways to take action with respect to pricing of pharmaceuticals," Saunders said. "I think that should be the baseline and built into the baseline, and that's something that frankly we at Allergan have been thinking about for a couple of years."

 — Read Doctors Who Prescribed Salix Drugs Ate Pretty Well on ThinkAdvisor.