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On Thursday, Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the new rule would be put on hold, along with several other Trump-era orders pending a 60-day review. Biden Chief of Staff Ron Klain directed federal agencies on Wednesday to pause orders that had been signed and published by the previous administration but not yet effective.

Hot topic: reducing drug pricing

Over the past four years, President Trump has zeroed in on tackling drug pricing in the US. He has published multiple executive orders laying out a most favoured nation pricing model. The most recent was published in mid-September and called for the Medicare Part B and D to pay the lowest price, “after adjusting for volume and differences in national gross domestic product” (GDP), that the product is sold for in any Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development with a similar per-capita GDP.

Pharma reacted angrily to this announcement. Levin calls the most favoured nation proposal “destructive”, “unworkable” and would destroy necessary innovation in the industry.

Although it is clear that reducing drug prices in the US, which is unsurprisingly not popular with the pharma industry as a whole, is also a priority of Biden, Levin says this is “a small price to pay for general consistency and commitment to innovation” which the President-elect offers compared to his predecessor.

Instead of a most favoured nation approach, Biden has suggested a few options for reducing drug prices in the US. These include establishing a review board to assess and recommend a reasonable price based on the average price elsewhere – this is terms external reference pricing – allowing the import of prescription drugs from abroad so long as the FDA has certified them as safe and linking generic prices to inflation.