"Favored Nations Rule" will reduce access to medicines and stifle biomedical research
 
WASHINGTON, D.C. (July 24, 2020) – Kenneth Thorpe, Chairman of the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease, has issued the following statement in response to President Donald Trump's "Favored Nations" drug plan:
 
"The Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease strongly condemns President Donald Trump's executive order regarding drug pricing. While we support efforts to make quality care and treatments more affordable and more accessible, the 'favored nations' executive order will import discriminatory pricing schemes, thus distancing patients from the medicines they need. It will also compromise innovation, stifling the development of new treatments and cures.
 
"There are more effective ways to reduce health care costs.
 
"Other nations pay less for drugs because they rely on price controls that could affect the availability of drugs to those living with disabilities and serious chronic conditions. Importing such pricing schemes here rejects America's historic support for the most vulnerable, and it could deny patients the ability to access the medicines they need. 
 
"Americans living with disabilities and chronic conditions deserve support, protection, and compassion.
 
"Over the next five years, 31 million Americans will be diagnosed with a chronic disease, and 1.7 million Americans will lose their lives to chronic diseases each year until then. American researchers are currently working on thousands of experimental treatments. These medical advances could help patients live longer, healthier lives and avoid costly hospitalizations, but these treatments may not come to fruition if President Trump's executive order takes effect."