Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks said at the end of today’s earnings conference call that he expects President Trump in the second half of 2017 to announce an executive order on drug pricing.
Reports have indicated that a measure may be weeks away, perhaps after the Senate votes on health care reform.

Ricks said he hopes Trump’s plan includes ideas the pharmaceutical industry has proposed, such as passing through rebates for Medicare insurance coverage gaps, pricing based on treatment outcomes, and speeding up the FDA’s backlog of generic drug approvals.

” We’ve responded to the concerns as an industry and as a company I think pretty well in terms of putting proactively aligned ideas from across the industry on the table that can leverage the power of the marketplace and competition to help consumers with their out-of-pocket costs,” Ricks said.

However  even if the executive order includes items on the pharma industry wish list, Ricks said he doesn’t think the debate will end there. He cited Democrats’ “A Better Deal” campaign, which specifically targets lowering drug prices as one of its central components.

The company disclosed with its second-quarter earnings report on Tuesday that its potential blockbuster arthritis drug Olumiant may face a years-long delay in getting to the U.S. market. It’s the latest in a series of pipeline setbacks for the drugmaker. Despite this, Lilly trades at a consistent premium to other large pharma peers.

Source: CNBC