Trump needs to declare war on US pharmas' drug-pricing abuses

ONE of Donald Trump's few universally welcomed campaign promises was to do something about the prices of pharmaceutical drugs. Most Americans recognise that prices are too high, and are bothered by the rise of pharmaceutical price gouging: the giant price increase for decades-old drugs and devices by the likes of Martin Shkreli with Daraprim or Mylan with the EpiPen. But what few people realise is that the US president already has the power to do something about drug prices if he really wants to. If Mr Trump wishes to show he's serious about his populist promise, the place to start is by declaring war on the price gougers.

The key power is found in the "import relief" law - an important yet unused provision of the Medicare Modernisation Act of 2003 that empowers the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to allow drug imports whenever they are deemed safe and capable of saving Americans money. The savings in the price-gouging cases would be significant. Daraprim, the antiparasitic drug whose price was raised by Mr Shkreli to nearly US$750 per pill, sells for a little more than US$2 overseas. The cancer drug Cosmegen is priced at US$1,400 or more per injection in America, as opposed to about US$20 to US$30 overseas.

The remedy is simple: The government can create a means for pharmacies to get supplies from trusted nations overseas at much lower prices. Doing this would not only save Americans a lot of money but also deflate the incentive to engage in abusive pricing in the first place.