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Highlights From The President’s Listening Session With Pharmaceutical Industry Leaders

President Trump On His Commitment To Make Drugs More Affordable While Promoting Innovation

PRESIDENT TRUMP: “You folks have done a terrific job over the years, but we have to get prices down for a lot of reasons. We have no choice. For Medicare, for Medicaid, we have to get the prices way down, so that’s what we’re going to be talking about. We’re also going to be streamlining the process so that from your standpoint when you have drug you can actually get it approved, if it works instead of waiting for many, many years. The U.S. drug companies have produced extraordinary results for our country but the pricing has been astronomical for our country.”

President Trump Focused On Cutting Regulations To Encourage Drug Companies To Bring Back Operations And Jobs To The United States

PRESIDENT TRUMP: “So you have to get your companies back here. We have to make progress back. We’re going to get rid of a tremendous number of regulations. I know you have some problems where you cannot even think about opening up new plants and then you can’t get approval for the plant and then you can’t get approval to make the drug.”

President Trump On Appointing A Leader To Streamline The FDA To Reduce Prices And Get New Products On The Market Faster:

PRESIDENT TRUMP: “We’re going to streamline the FDA, we have a fantastic person that I think I we’ll be naming fairly soon, he’s going to streamline the FDA and you’re going to get your products either approved or not approved but it’s going to be a quick process. It’s not going to take 15 years. And we’re going to do I think a tremendous — I think we’re going to make a tremendous difference to you. I read where it costs sometimes $2.5 billion on average, actually, to come up with a new product. Is that correct? 15 years, $2.5 billion to come up with a product where there’s not even a safety problem. So it’s crazy. I’m surprised you can’t get them to move faster than that.”