PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP REMARKS AT MEETING WITH PHARMA - CQ
31-Jan-2017 16:39
TRANSCRIPT
January 31, 2017
NEWS EVENT
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP
WASHINGTON, D.C.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP REMARKS AT MEETING WITH PHARMA
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP DELIVERS REMARKS AT MEETING
WITH PHARMACEUTICAL EXECUTIVES
JANUARY 31, 2017
SPEAKER: PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP
TRUMP: (OFF-MIKE) and I think you know most of my team.
And you folks have done a terrific job over the years, but we have to get prices down for a lot of reasons. We have no choice. For Medicare, for Medicaid, we have to get the prices way down so that's what we're gonna be talking about.
We're also gonna be streamlining the process, so that, from your standpoint, when you have a drug, you can actually get it approved if it works, instead of waiting for many, many years.
The U.S. drug companies have produced extraordinary results for our country, but the pricing has been astronomical for our country. Gonna do better.
New drugs have led to longer, healthier lives; we all know that. But we have to do better.
Accelerating cures. (inaudible) focussed on accelerating FDA approvals. We're gonna get the approval process much faster.
One thing that's always disturbed me, they come up with a new drug for a patient who's terminal, and the FDA says, "We can't have this drug used on the patient," but they say that the patient within four weeks will be dead. They say, "Well, we still can't approve the drug. And we don't know if the drug works or if it doesn't work, but we can't approve the drug because we don't want to hurt the patient." But the patient is not gonna live more than four weeks.
So we're gonna be changing a lot of -- a lot of the rules.
We're going to be ending global freeloading. Foreign price controls reduce the resources of American drug companies to finance drug and R&D innovation. I think you people know that very well. Very unfair to this country.
Our trade policy will prioritize that foreign countries pay their fair share for U.S.-manufactured drugs so our drug companies have greater financial resources to accelerate the development of new cures. And I think it's so important. But right now, it's very unfair what other countries are doing to us.
One thing I really want you to do a lot of -- I've seen this over the years, but a lot of the companies have moved out. They don't make the drugs in our country anymore. A lot of that has to do with regulation. A lot of it has to do with the fact that other countries take advantage of us with their money and their money supply and devaluation because we don't know anything -- our country has been run so badly, we know nothing about devaluation. Every other country lives on devaluation.
TRUMP: You look at what China's doing, you look at what Japan has done over the years. They -- they play the money market, they play the devaluation market and we sit there like a bunch of dummies.
So you have to get your companies back here. We have to make products back -- we're gonna get rid of a tremendous number of regulations. I know you have problems where you cannot even think about opening up new plants. You can't get approval for the plant and then you can't get approval to make the drugs. Other than that, you're doing fantastic.
(LAUGHTER)
So we're gonna get that taken care of. We're gonna be cutting regulations at a level that nobody's ever seen before and we're going to have tremendous protection for the people, maybe more protection for the people. But instead of being 9,000 pages, it can be 100 pages. And you don't have to double up and quadruple up and hire -- we have companies where they have more people working on regulations than they have working in the company, so it's very unfair.
We have to lower the drug prices. Competition, the key to lower drug prices. We have competition, but a lot of times, the competition dissipates. I'll oppose anything that makes it harder for smaller, younger companies to take the risk of bringing a product to a vibrantly competitive market. That includes price fixing by the biggest dog in the market, Medicare, which is what's happening. But we can increase competition and bidding wars big-time. We have to (inaudible).
The numbers we pay -- I mean, we have cases where if I go to a drugstore and buy aspirin, the aspirin cost me less than what the United States pays for aspirin, and the United States is the biggest purchaser of drugs anywhere in the world by far, so I can buy aspirin at a drugstore the aspirin for less money, right? And so we'll talk about that after these wonderful people that I like so much leave (inaudible) do something about that.
(LAUGHTER)
We're gonna have national security priorities, very important, and we're gonna basically work on innovation, we're gonna work on price. We can save tens of billions of dollars, and you people are going to do great. You're gonna do great. So what I want, is we have to get lower prices, we have to get even better innovation and I want you to move your companies back to the United States. I want you to manufacture in the United States.
We're gonna be lowering taxes big league, we're going to be getting rid of regulations that are unnecessary big league. Somebody said the other day, what's the percentage of regulation? I said maybe 75 percent, it could even be up to 80 percent, which is what you need because you can't even function. Other countries have no regulation and you go there for that reason, and you produce a good product. You want to be -- you want to produce good product also, so we're going to produce great product.
We're gonna streamline the FDA. We have a fantastic person that I think I'll be naming fairly soon who's gonna streamline the FDA and you're gonna get your products either approved or not approved, but it's gonna be a quick process. It's not gonna take 15 years. And we're going to do, I think, a tremendous -- I think we're gonna make a tremendous difference to you. (inaudible) it costs sometimes $2.5 billion on average actually to come up with a new product. Is that correct?
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Fifteen years, $2.5 billion to come up with a product where there's not even a safety problem. So it's crazy. Surprised you can't get them to move faster (inaudible). I know you. I thought -- I thought he could do it (ph), but I guess (inaudible).
(LAUGHTER)
That's why we're here today, right? That's why we're here today.
So with that, I'd love to go around the table, we introduce ourselves and -- and let's see, and then we'll -- we'll start a little meeting and we'll ask the press to leave. So just two seconds, you can stay for a couple of minutes longer.
(UNKNOWN): Mr. President, Bob (inaudible), former chair of Pharma. Our company's headquartered in New Jersey (inaudible) and we operate all over the country and 60 countries around the world. And when I joined the company two years ago, we were ranked as one of the top ten companies in the country to go bankrupt, and today, due to a lot of risk we've taken, we really provided a lot of cancer cure -- cancer treatments patients.
So we're -- great to be here and we look forward to (inaudible). So thank you very much.
TRUMP: Thank you, Bob.
BOB BRADWAY, AMGEN: Bob Bradway from Amgen.
Mr. President, thank you for having us. Delighted to be here. We share with you the desire to advance innovation that can help (inaudible) or even eradicate some of the serious diseases that you talked about in your inaugural speech. We're confident about the outlook of (ph) innovation in this country and proud to say we'll be adding 1,600 jobs at Amgen this year.
(CROSSTALK)
BRADWAY: ... our confidence in the outlook of (ph) innovation as a company and for the industry. And we look forward to continuing to advance medicine (inaudible).
TRUMP: Good. I just heard you're going to be adding a substantial number of jobs. That's very good. Thank (inaudible).
REP. GREG WALDEN, R-ORE.: I'm Greg Walden. I'm chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee and look forward to working with the administration and these initiatives.
TRUMP: Thank you.
WALDEN: We've got a lot of good work we need to get done.
TRUMP: Thank you. And thanks for being here. You've worked on it long and hard. And now we'll get your -- your labors will have paid off. OK? Thank you very much.
DAVE RICKS, CEO, ELI LILLY: Mr. President, Dave Ricks. I'm the new CEO of Eli Lilly; 140 years, we've been in Indiana, in Indianapolis. And that's where we make a lot of our products, too. In fact, we're hiring manufacturing jobs as I speak, which is good news for people in Indiana, but also some of the policies you've come out and suggested I think could help us do more. So I'm looking forward to the meeting ahead. And tax, deregulation -- those are things that could really help us expand operations.
TRUMP: Thank you.
RICKS: Thank you.
TRUMP: Go ahead, vice president (ph).
JOAQUIN DUATO, DIRECTOR, JOHNSON AND JOHNSON: Joaquin Duato, director, Johnson and Johnson, current chair of the PhRMA Association, representing a company that employs (inaudible) about 50,000 people in the U.S., most of them in manufacturing (inaudible) one of the largest investments in R&D.
TRUMP: OK. Thank you.
Johnson & Johnson -- good company.
JOE JIMENEZ, CEO, NOVARTIS: Joe Jimenez from Novartis, CEO. We have about -- we spend about $3 billion in research and development. Our global headquarters is up near Boston. We have about 13 manufacturing sites here in the U.S. and employ about 20,000 people.
TRUMP: (OFF-MIKE)
JIMENEZ: Yes, we're looking at ways to (inaudible).
TRUMP: Within the United States.
JIMENEZ: One of the things that...
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: The rest I'm not (inaudible).
(LAUGHTER)
JIMENEZ: ... one of the things that can help us is a lower tax rate. If you think about the corporate tax rate (inaudible), when we look globally, that's a massive help.
TRUMP: Yes, we'll get it.
STEVE UBL, PHRMA: Mr. President, Steve Ubl with PhRMA. It's a pleasure to be here. On behalf of the whole industry, we employ 4.5 million Americans directly or indirectly. The industry invests about $70 billion in R&D in the United States, more than any other industry. And we're just delighted to be here this morning to talk about reducing regulations, lowering taxes. We think stronger trade deals, those things will lead to lower costs for American patients and for the taxpayer.
TRUMP: OK. Thank you, Stephen.
KEN FRAZIER, CEO, MERCK: And I'm Ken Frazier. I'm chairman and CEO of Merck. We've been in this country for 125 years. We employ about 23,000 American employees. We invest about $7.5 billion a year in R&D, almost all in the United States of America. And we have tremendous numbers of high-paying, high-skilled jobs, including manufacturing jobs in the United States. And in fact, we're bringing manufacturing back for our cancer drug. You may have heard that we have an immuno-oncology drug that stimulates the immune system to control different cancers. We're bringing those jobs here, Mr. President.
TRUMP: That's very good. Thank you. Thank you very much. That's really fantastic.
OK, press (ph)? Thank you.
END
