Report: Trump’s hints at FDA reform could bode well for pharma industry

The Washington Post is reporting that President-elect Donald Trump’s transition website may be hinting to drug and medical device makers that under his administration, it might be easier to get their treatments to patients. The transition site promises that as president, Trump will “reform the Food and Drug Administration to put greater focus on the need of patients for new and innovative medical products.”

 

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America president and CEO Stephen Ubl told the Post, “We are in a new era of medicine with treatments and cures that are completely transforming the fight against debilitating diseases. To ensure this innovation continues, we need to modernize the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to keep pace with scientific advances, remove regulatory barriers that make it harder to move to a value-driven health care system and focus on making better use of the medicines we have today.”

 

And though consumer organization Public Citizen president Robert Weissman sees the plan as a signal that Trump would deregulate FDA oversight, the National Center for Health Research’s president, Diana Zuckerman, told the Post, “I think the honest answer is nobody knows.”

 

To read the report, click here.