Trump wants higher drug prices abroad

Washington, May 12: US President Donald Trump presented here on Friday his plan to lower drug prices in the US, a strategy that seeks, among other things, to force other countries to increase their drug prices to bring down costs at home. “It’s time to end the global freeloading once and for all. I have directed US Trade Representative Bob Lighthizer to make fixing this injustice a top priority with every trading partner,” Trump said. Trump argued that other countries take advantage of the US pharmaceutical industry and its investments in research and development, claiming that bringing downs costs at home would require increasing prices in foreign countries. All of the world’s 10 largest pharmaceutical companies operate globally. Five of them are based in the United States, two in Switzerland, and one each in France, the United Kingdom and Germany. “When foreign governments extort unreasonably low prices from US drug makers, Americans have to pay more to subsidize the enormous cost of research and development,” Trump said. “In some cases, medicine that costs a few dollars in a foreign country costs hundreds of dollars in America for the same pill, with the same ingredients, in the same package, made in the same plant,” the real estate mogul said. (IANS)