Press Releases | April 16, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In response to President Trump’s new executive order on prescription drug prices, Merith Basey, Executive Director of Patients For Affordable Drugs, issued the following statement:
“This executive order (EO) signals that the Administration recognizes the urgency of tackling high drug prices, in line with what the majority of Americans are demanding. The first round of Medicare negotiations delivered an average 22% price reduction on 10 high-cost drugs, and is projected to save taxpayers $6 billion, and if the administration can negotiate more aggressive price cuts in the second round, it would be a major win for patients and consumers.
The EO also includes a deeply harmful provision that caves to pharmaceutical lobbyists’ demands and reverses some of the progress patients fought hard to achieve. Delaying Medicare negotiation for small-molecule drugs – the most commonly used medications – is a clear giveaway to Big Pharma. It would hand drug companies four additional years to price-gouge patients, one in three of whom can’t afford their prescription drugs today. This change isn’t about supporting innovation as the industry claims – it’s about protecting exorbitant profits.
Nine in ten voters say more should be done to lower drug costs, and while patients will be encouraged by steps to accelerate competition for generics and biosimilars, increase accountability of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), and lower insulin and epinephrine costs – the move to delay negotiation for small-molecule drugs runs counter to the Administration’s stated goals: taking on Big Pharma to lower drug prices for Americans.”
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Patients For Affordable Drugs is the only national patient advocacy organization focused exclusively on policies that lower prescription drug prices. We empower and mobilize patients by amplifying their experiences with high drug prices to hold those in power to account and fight to shape and achieve system-changing policies that make prescription drugs affordable for all people in the United States. P4AD does not accept funding from organizations that profit from the development and distribution of drugs. To learn more, visit PatientsForAffordableDrugs.org.