Trump says he asked 17 drugmakers to take steps to cut U.S. prices within 60 days

U.S. President Donald Trump, U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Dr. Mehmet Oz, Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, David Sacks, AI & Crypto Czar and Amy Gleason, Acting Administrator, Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) attend the “Making Health Technology Great Again” event in the East Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 30, 2025.

Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

President Donald Trump on Thursday said he asked major pharmaceutical companies to take steps to cut U.S. drug prices within the next 60 days.

On Truth Social on Thursday, Trump posted individual letters he sent 17 drugmakers, including Eli Lilly, GSK, Pfizer, Regeneron, Merck, Pfizer and Novo Nordisk.

It comes after Trump in May signed an executive order reviving a controversial policy that aims to slash drug costs by tying the prices of some medicine in the U.S. to the significantly lower ones abroad. It was Trump’s latest effort to try to rein in U.S. prescription drug prices, which are two to three times higher on average than those in other developed nations – and up to 10 times more than in certain countries, according to the Rand Corp., a public policy think tank.

In the letters on Thursday, Trump said drugmakers have proposed potential solutions for high U.S. drug prices. But he said those proposals “promised more of the same: shifting blame and requesting policy changes that would result in billions of dollars in handouts to the industry.”

He said moving forward, he will only accept commitments from drugmakers that provide “American families immediate relief from the vastly inflated drug prices and an end to the free ride of American innovation by European and other developed nations.”

Drugmakers are also bracing for the president’s planned tariffs on pharmaceuticals imported into the U.S.

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