Roche boss says ‘very easy’ to cut US drug prices by 50%

Roche is in talks with the US government to cut out the pharmaceutical industry’s intermediaries and sell medicines directly to patients, as drugmakers try to see off the threat of dramatic price cuts under President Donald Trump’s proposed reforms. Thomas Schinecker, Roche’s chief executive, said half of all the earnings in the supply chain went to intermediaries, known as pharmacy benefit managers, who take “zero risk” on innovation. “So if the US would like to cut prices by 50%, it’s very easy. We go direct. And this is one of the discussions that we’re having with the US, and that would bring down costs quite quickly,” he said. Trump has signed an executive order proposing a “Most Favoured Nation” drug pricing policy, which would insist that pharmaceutical companies give the US the best price on medicines out of any countries with at least 60% of the US’s GDP per capita. If implemented, this would be a significant hit to the industry in its largest market, because drugs are on ...