Trump Goes After Pharma on Twitter as Companies Increase Prices

The comment was also an awkward contrast to one Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar wrote on Jan. 2, praising Trump's leadership as the reason the pharma industry had announced "smaller and fewer drug price increases."

Top pharmaceutical executives, investors and analysts are heading to San Francisco for the annual JPMorgan Healthcare Conference, which runs Monday through Thursday and often features preliminary earnings announcements, product updates and potential deal-making.

Trump has promised to bring down drug prices and in July shamed Pfizer Inc., the biggest U.S. drugmaker, on Twitter. The company then said it would put price increases on hold until this year, when prices will rise about 10% on its pharmaceutical products. A spokeswoman for Azar called Pfizer's upcoming move, revealed in November, an illustration of "the perverse incentives of America's drug pricing system."

Azar has proposed plans to increase third-party negotiation of some drugs in Medicare as well as to benchmark prices the health program for the elderly and disabled pay to the prices paid by other developed countries where such costs are typically cheaper because they are set by the government.

— Read Trump Promises Aggressive Campaign to Cut US Drug Prices, on ThinkAdvisor.

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