Trump says drugmakers are ‘getting away with murder,’ and biotech stocks plunge

During a press conference on Wednesday, the USA president-elect said that pharmaceutical companies were “getting away with murder” when it came to drug pricing and said that he will change it. Pharma, Pharma has a lot of lobbyists – a lot of lobbyists – a lot of power, and there’s very little bidding on drugs.

Several large USA drug companies have attempted mergers that would move their headquarters overseas to countries with lower corporate tax rates.

Currently, Medicare is not legally allowed to negotiate the prices they pay for drugs.

Drug price negotiation has always been a goal of progressive health policy advocates, and was something that both Trump and Clinton campaigned on during the presidential election. Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd fell 0.6% while Lupin Ltd plunged 2% and Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd declined 1.2%. Executives and analysts immediately began to debate the extent to which Trump’s comments are a specific policy proposal, or a warning shot.

“We have to get our drug industry coming back”, Trump said.

Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to Trump, said the president-elect wants Democrats to be involved in drug-cost legislation, which she linked to a broader push to repeal the ACA. It’s not incremental change; I don’t think that’s what this country needs.

After outlining what he said were his successes in bringing back manufacturing to the United States, he turned on the pharmaceutical industry.

Trump held a press conference yesterday in which he briefly discussed drug prices, a topic that is concerning for many Americans.

Trump had previously expressed interest in lowering drug prices in the Time article when he was named Person of the Year.

“I am hoping that the industry will stop responding to irrational comments by dropping the market 5 percent because it doesn’t hurt the company”, he said.

Even Sen. Bernie Sanders supported Trump’s excoriation of Big Pharma, tweeting, “Trump is right: pharma is ‘getting away with murder, ‘ on January 11”. Or should investors stay away?

Having taken the motor industry to task with his protectionist stance of late, Trump confirmed his intentions to get drugs companies manufacturing in the US. The announcement sent the stock price of several drugmakers plummeting.

“The idea that you can just negotiate your way down to lower prices…” The group pledged $80 billion to help fund Obamacare in 2009 in exchange for protection from drug-price negotiation that Democrats wanted to include in the Affordable Care Act.

“Our drug industry has been disastrous”.