Access to affordable prescription drugs can be a matter of life or death for American patients. The President has heard how much this matters to Americans, and we at HHS have heard the same. We all know how unfair it is that other countries are paying lower prices for the same drugs, and we’re taking action.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us.
Today, we’re announcing a significant step forward in President Trump’s broad agenda to lower prescription drug prices and end foreign freeloading. The Food and Drug Administration is laying out, for the first time in its history, a framework within which safe, lower-cost prescription drugs could be imported from other countries to save money for American patients.
Access to affordable prescription drugs can be a matter of life or death for American patients. The President has heard how much this matters to Americans, and we at HHS have heard the same. We all know how unfair it is that other countries are paying lower prices for the same drugs, and we’re taking action.
As Commissioner Sharpless will explain at greater length, the Safe Importation Action Plan we’re announcing today outlines two pathways that could realize cost savings for patients. It provides for importation of drugs that were originally intended for sale in foreign countries, when it can be done in a way that addresses safety concerns and does not put patients or the U.S. drug supply chain at risk.
That means we’re going to examine proposals from states, distributors, and wholesalers to allow importation that would provide lower-cost drugs for patients. As many of you know, I have spent a good deal of my professional career at HHS or working on these issues. Over that time, the landscape and the opportunities for safe linkage between drug supply chains has changed.
That is part of why, for the first time in HHS’s history, we are open to importation: We want to see proposals from states, distributors, and pharmacies that can help accomplish our shared goal of safe prescription drugs at lower prices.
There are complex operational questions to be answered as part of this process. Through both guidance and proposed regulation, HHS looks forward to laying out a framework that, in collaboration with states and other stakeholders, can provide a new path to lower-cost drugs for American patients.
Today’s announcement is an important piece of a much broader vision President Trump is delivering on drug pricing. We’ve already provided historic new levels of competition, new incentives for lower list prices, new negotiation tools for our government programs, and major changes to lower out-of-pocket costs for seniors. We’ve unveiled unprecedented steps to cut down on foreign freeloading off American patients, and today’s announcement is another step in that direction.
We’ve been very pleased to see Congress take significant interest on the issue of high drug prices and out-of-pocket costs. Action from Congress would help secure lasting improvement on many of the areas for action that the President laid out in his drug-pricing blueprint last year.
Every day, we at HHS are working to execute on the proposals in the blueprint and deliver lower drug costs. We look forward to Congress continuing its own work on the same goals.
I want to close by explaining why lowering prescription drug prices is an important part of President Trump’s healthcare vision that we’re executing on at HHS.
In formulating this administration’s plan for healthcare, President Trump listened to the American people: we heard about the pain Americans are feeling at the pharmacy counter, we learned that this was impacting Americans’ health, and we’re taking action. Americans deserve protection from high drug costs, and they deserve a healthcare system that provides affordable, patient-centric care.
Today’s announcement is a significant step toward delivering the affordability American patients need, the options and control they want, and the quality they deserve.
I look forward to providing more updates in the weeks and months to come, and I now want to hand things over to the Acting FDA Commissioner, Dr. Ned Sharpless, to explain some more details about today’s announcement.
