President Trump slammed Pfizer and other drug-makers on Monday for raising prices on medicines, saying they should be “ashamed” of taking “advantage of the poor” and warned, “We will respond!”
“Pfizer & others should be ashamed that they have raised drug prices for no reason. They are merely taking advantage of the poor & others unable to defend themselves, while at the same time giving bargain basement prices to other countries in Europe & elsewhere,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “We will respond!”
Pfizer, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies with billions of dollars in annual sales, announced it was raising prices on 100 prescription medicines — including best-seller Viagra, smoking cessation drug Chantix, blood pressure pills Norvasc and lung cancer treatment Xalkori — on July 1, the Financial Times reported.
It was the second time this year that Pfizer hiked prices, creating double-digit increases for dozens of medications.
For example, the company raised the price of Chantix by 9.4 percent in January and another 7 percent on July 1, jacking the price for a 56-tablet bottle to $429, the Wall Street Journal reported.
A number of other drug companies also announced price increases in July.
Trump rolled out a 44-page “blueprint” for lowering drug costs during a Rose Garden announcement in May that he said would force pharmaceutical companies to lower prices.
“We will have tougher negotiation, more competition and much lower prices at the pharmacy counter,” Trump said. “And it will start to take effect very soon.”