Trump ends program to lower prescription prices, make disease therapy available

Call it the Make Drug Prices High Again executive order. 

Among many executive orders signed Monday by incoming President Donald Trump was an order reversing an initiative signed by former President Joe Biden directing Medicare and Medicaid agencies to test models that could both lower prescription drug prices and make cell and gene therapy treatments more accessible to Medicaid recipients. 

Alabama was among numerous states that opted into the Cell and Gene Therapy Access Model, which was accepting applications for the program through February. 

Cell and gene therapies have shown great promise in treating a number of diseases and have proven to be particularly effective in treating a number of types of cancer and sickle cell. However, the therapies are expensive and were thus unavailable to most Medicaid recipients prior to the implementation of the pilot program. The program created multi-state purchasing agreements that made the treatments more affordable for states, thus allowing Medicaid recipients – most of whom are children and/or live well below the poverty line – access to the life-saving treatments. 

Additionally, Trump’s reversal of Biden’s order ended two other programs that lowered prescription drug costs. The first program implemented in Medicare a flat $2 copay for all generic medications – a program that the administration hoped would lead to more seniors taking their necessary medications. 

The second program had Medicare pay less for drugs that received accelerated approval from the FDA. Such approval is often achieved when a drug proves to be safe but not necessarily effective. The program, theoretically, would have led to manufacturers completing the FDA process before rushing ineffective drugs to market in an effort to increase profits quickly. 

All of these programs were an extension of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which proved to be an incredible success when juxtaposed to the struggles of other nations navigating high inflation following the pandemic. A portion of the IRA specifically addressed prescription drug prices and began the process of having Medicare and Medicaid negotiate significantly more pharmaceutical prices and place price caps on hundreds of drugs. 

The Gene and Cell Therapy test program, according to Biden’s Executive Order 14087, was specifically targeted to help Americans better afford cancer treatments.