Trump Likely to Push Competition, Generics to Reduce Drug Prices

President Donald Trump has postponed a speech on lowering prescription drug prices previously scheduled for Thursday to a date in the near future, the White House said Sunday.

The speech was pushed back because Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who was scheduled to attend the speech, last week was hospitalized for the second time for diverticulitis, an inflammation of small pouches in the walls of the colon.

The address would have been Trump's first about lowering drug prices, one of the main issues he campaigned on during the 2016 presidential race.

The Republican president has said pharmaceutical companies are "getting away with murder" and has vowed to lower prescription drug prices. 

To that end, Trump is expected to push for more competition and clearing hurdles for more generic drugs.

"The key is competition, which has a more lasting impact on prices. Generics are only a subset of that,” Ed Haislmaier, senior fellow for health policy studies at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal.

"There’s been an argument that the FDA should focus on break-through drugs instead of me-too drugs. But, it’s those so-called me-too drugs that bring competition and prices down,” Haislmaier said.

In approving new drugs, the Food and Drug Administration has said it seeks to balance promoting innovation with competition. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced the Drug Competition Action Plan last year.

The White House did not provide a date or time frame for when Trump's speech would take place.

Azar was discharged from the hospital on Thursday and returned to his home state of Indiana to recover with his family, and it was unlikely he would return to Washington until sometime this week, his agency said.