Cheaper pharmaceuticals won’t be on shelves any time soon, says the CEO of Pfizer. That’s despite an executive order signed last month declaring a war on drug prices, which at one point President Donald Trump promised to cut by 90% in 30 days.
Pfizer’s Albert Bourla said on Monday that his company and others have been in talks with the Trump administration, but nothing has yet come of it. Speaking to a Goldman Sachs conference on health care, Bourla mused that prices in Europe could increase as a result of U.S. policy.
On May 12, Trump issued an executive order demanding drug companies lower their prices to a level comparable with countries in the OECD. Over the past four years, prices of new drugs have more than doubled.
The U.S. has the worst health outcomes of any high-income nation, according to a 2024 report from the Commonwealth Fund, despite spending more per capita on health care.
The problem might not be drug prices, however, but the fact that the U.S. is one of only four OECD countries not to have universal health care. “Health insurance is a well-documented determinant of health status because it provides access to care that prevents avoidable deaths,” wrote the Harvard Business Review in November. “All high-income countries other than the United States cover all their residents.”
There was no legal mandate attached to the executive order on drug pricing. While Trump’s announcement initially made the industry nervous, once details emerged about its voluntary nature, the pharmaceutical industry got a stock bump.