Could Trump’s Drug Industry Critiques Be Working? Latest Drug Price Trends Are Good For Americans

by Evie Fordham

Drug prices, on the whole, looked much better in August than they did in July, which may be due in part to President Donald Trump’s critiques of the pharmaceutical industry, according to a Wells Fargo report on monthly drug prices.

“We believe that August essentially shows that President Trump’s criticism might be working and may at least have deterred some companies from raising price in the near-term and ahead of the mid-term elections,” stated the report, which was published Wednesday.

Drug companies slashed prices on 48 drug products in August, up from 32 drug products in July, according to the report.

Many of those price cuts were substantial. The average price decrease per product was approximately 41 percent, and the median price decrease per product was approximately 39 percent.

Drug companies also hiked the prices of 60 products in August, but that compares to 110 price hikes in July. The median price hike per product was less than 10 percent, reported Axios.

The report warned against too much celebration over the decrease in price hikes, however.

“July is historically a more popular month for drugmakers to hike prices, because it kicks off the second half of the year,” the report stated.

Many generic drug prices experienced extremely large increases, like the 404 percent price increase on the antibiotic nitrofurantoin, reported Axios. Hospitals have had trouble obtaining certain important generics recently, and the Food and Drug Administration is trying to incentivize drugmakers to invest in the generics market to increase competition and lower prices.

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