Amidst the widespread protests being carried out against the latest President-elect Donald Trump, one of his first orders of business was how he was going to help bring on reforms in the pharmaceutical industry hot on the heels of what he will do with ‘Obamacare’ He has thus far hinted at the fact that it will be easier for products to be launches in the market by drug and medical device providers.
His health plan states -“Reform the Food and Drug Administration, to put greater focus on the need of patients for new and innovative medical products,”
Though this statement may not seem much, they claim in order to meet patients’ preferences and encourage innovation, often times proposals are drawn up to hasten the process for obtaining new medicines in the market by easing certain market regulations.
There is opposition from critics who say that these efforts dilute the standards followed and will put many a patient lives at risk by exposing them to drugs that are harmful and some which may even cause death.
“The language … is industry code for deregulation and reducing of safety standards,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, a consumer watchdog. “Of course
, the general deregulatory rhetoric from candidate Trump is a worry for us, but as applied to FDA, it would be very troubling.”Though no one is sure about the direction in which the policy is heading under Trump’s administration. But this idea of faster approvals for drugs and medicines to hit the market has been popular decision amongst people and Trump is using this as leverage to gain support from all sides. The drug industry which was readying itself for defending theri business models and pricing against the Hillary Clinton presidency can now breathe easy since they now see an opportunity to stream line the approval process.
Stephen Ubl, president and chief executive of PhRMA, the trade group for the drug industry, emphasized in a statement the importance of solutions that “enhance the private market.”
“We are in a new era of medicine with treatments and cures that are completely transforming the fight against debilitating diseases,” Ubl said. “To ensure this innovation continues, we need to modernize the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to keep pace with scientific advances, remove regulatory barriers that make it harder to move to a value-driven health care system and focus on making better use of the medicines we have today.”
Even though his statements seem promising enough, given Trump’s unpredictability — and the lack of certainty about who will define his health policy, many people are being cautious.
“I think the honest answer is nobody knows” what to expect, said Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Center for Health Research. “Some members of Congress owe pharma a favor; we don’t know the Trump campaign is in that position, and they might not be — and that might give them a certain amount of flexibility. The Trump campaign is nothing if not iconoclastic.”
According to Weismann, though there was a sudden upturn in the biotech and pharmaceutical company stocks after Trump’s historic win and this would’ve seemed optimistic, Trump did support the Medicare system which allows drug price negotiations which the industry is against. The pocketbook problem of paying for prescriptions won’t go away for people across the country, Weissman points out — which could keep the heat on politicians to do something about prices. And even if negotiating prices is kept off the table the Affordable Care Act would give millions of Americans access to prescription drugs and what can replace it is unclear at this point.
It sounds like a promising prospect but only time can tell how effective these promises and policies can be.
