Trump to roll out drug pricing executive order

President Trump announced late last week there would soon be an executive order ensuring that the U.S. wouldn’t pay more than the lowest price offered to either a company or a developed country — what’s sometimes referred to as a “favored nations” policy. He didn’t specify how this proposal differed from a possible White House pilot program in which certain physician-administered drugs would be priced according to average amounts taken from an international index. Health secretary Alex Azar has warned that tying U.S. drug prices to those overseas might cause companies to avoid foreign markets. While Trump has talked a lot about high drug costs, his administration has yet to enact its most aggressive reforms on that front, though a rule requiring pharma companies to disclose list prices in TV ads will take effect later this month.