Why Trump’s Second Term is Different for the MFN Drug Pricing Policy

While the idea of a most favored nation (MFN) drug pricing policy is certainly not new to the current presidential administration, it’s second go at implementing the statute is believed to introduce unprecedented change to American’s health care costs.

“[Trump’s] asked the HHS secretary to establish MFN price targets. He's teaming up with the Secretary of Commerce in order to make sure that these things happen,” Ron Lanton III, Esq, partner at Lanton Law, told Drug Topics. “Basically, what it is essentially trying [is] to get drug prices as low as possible, maybe using a benchmark of other countries to do so. That's where the term comes from, and that's kind of where we are today.”

According to Lanton, there just simply wasn’t enough backing the MFN during Trump’s first term as president. From what Lanton said were procedural flaws in rulemaking to simply not having enough time to implement the policy during Trump’s first 4-year term, the MFN drug pricing policy executive order is expected to make a significantly greater impact than it did in 2020.

In part 1 of our interview with Lanton, he introduced the idea of the MFN drug pricing policy, why the administration continues to go after this lofty goal, and how it is different and expected to overcome previous policies of a similar ilk. Learn more about the MFN policy from a legal expert with over 25 years of experience and an additional 15 years dedicated to a health care focus.

“There are deals with pharma companies that do direct-to-consumer with websites like the TrumpRx website,” concluded Lanton. “We're now seeing pharma, with America's Medicines, and how there's this competing direct-to-consumer—public, private—and whether or not it's really good for pharma to get out of it and just do it themselves, rather than have the government tell them. I think these are all things that are kind of ancillary to the MFN.”

READ MORE: How TrumpRx Is Bringing Unprecedented Change to the Drug Supply Chain

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