Reining in the high cost of prescription drugs has been a major aim of the Trump administration, marked most notably by the president’s 2018 “Blueprint to Lower Drug Prices” directive. Since then, the administration has rolled out numerous orders and regulations aimed at bringing reform to the pharmaceutical industry only to be met with resistance.
Though many of those initiatives have been slow to get started or stalled by legal challenges, a new executive order from President Trump requiring the government to buy certain drugs from American factories could have some teeth. As much as 90% of the country’s supply of generic drugs is manufactured abroad.
The order instructs the FDA to implement the new directive but allows certain drugs to be exempted if making them on U.S. soil proves cost prohibitive. In addition, the order directs Health and Human Services to speed up FDA approval for U.S. drugs and prioritizes government contracts with domestic drug manufacturers.