Pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer and Novartis are freezing their prices on prescription medications because the industry is "seeing the writing on the wall," Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar commented Thursday.
"They know that President [Donald] Trump and I are committed that we will bring prices down," Azar told Fox Business' Stuart Varney on "Varney & Company."
"We're creating the legislative and regulatory structures that make sense, that they will bring the prices down."
Azar said the Trump administration applauds the two companies for freezing their prices, but are not depending on companies taking such voluntary action for change to happen.
Thursday morning, Trump tweeted his thanks for the move, but promised a "big push to actually reduce the prices, maybe substantially, on prescription drugs."
"We are driving swift, firm regulatory action, legislative action that will create incentive to bring prices down in the country," said Azar. "Hopefully, others see that is way this country is going and we are completely resetting the pricing system in the us."
Azar warned that there is no "one silver bullet" that will make lowering prices happen, but a collection of actions.
"In the last week, we have taken a series of actions and lowered the price that we will pay for these physician-administered drugs when they come on the market," he said. "We created new, broader pathways for cheaper, over-the-counter drugs for people and opened pathways for a full agenda to create biosimilars which is a generic drug of these high cost biologics."
Azar also said the administration announced earlier in the morning that he would find a pathway to import drugs, which would help solve supply and price disruptions in the United States caused by sole-source products "sitting there jacking its price up."
Trump said he's also been vigroups about speaking of countries that are underpaying for some medications, when the United States is overpaying, said Azar.
"If you got a high-cost generic drug or drug that is not on patent sitting by itself and jacking the price up, we are going to find a way that is safe, effective and tax innovation to bring a competing drug in from other countries to be able to bring prices down and bring competition here from a different company," said Azar.
"We think we're get the best of all worlds and respecting innovation but harnessing the power of our markets."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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