President Joe Biden signed an executive order Friday afternoon (July 9) that gives HHS 45 days to issue a comprehensive plan to combat high prescription drug prices and price gouging. It also calls for FDA and the Federal Trade Commission to take action to spur generic drug competition, including by working with states and tribes to safely import prescription drugs from Canada, and banning so-called pay-for-delay settlements in which brand drug makers pay generic competitors to delay research, production or sale of their drugs.
The directives are part of a broad executive order that calls for 72 initiatives from more than a dozen federal agencies in a bid to increase competition across the U.S. economy. Americans pay more than two-and-a-half times as much for the same prescription drugs as peer countries, and sometimes more, and price increases continue to far surpass inflation, the White House says in a fact sheet released Friday ahead of the executive order. As a result, nearly one in four Americans report difficulties paying for medication, and nearly one in three Americans report not taking their medications as prescribed.
High drug prices are, in part, the result of a lack of competition among drug makers, the White House asserts.
“The largest pharmaceutical companies are able to wield their market power to reap average annual profits of 15-20%, as compared to average annual profits of 4-9% for the largest non-drug companies,” the administration says.
Under the executive order, HHS has 45 days to issue a comprehensive plan to combat high prescription drug prices and price gouging.
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