On May 12, 2025, the Trump Administration released Executive Order 14297, entitled “Delivering Most-Favored-Nation Drug Pricing to American Patients” (the Order). The Order seeks to make available to American consumers the “most-favored nation lowest price” to end “global freeloading.”
The Order and a related fact sheet released on the same day assert that the prices Americans pay for brand-name drugs are more than three times the prices other OECD nations pay, even after accounting for discounts that manufacturers provide in the U.S. They state that this has resulted from “a purposeful scheme in which drug manufacturers deeply discount their products to access foreign markets, and subsidize that decrease through enormously high prices in the United States.” They further assert that “[t]he inflated prices in the United States fuel global innovation while foreign health systems get a free ride.”
The Order states that, within 30 days (i.e., by June 11, 2025), the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will “communicate most-favored-nation price targets to pharmaceutical manufacturers to bring prices for American patients in line with comparably developed nations.” The Order and fact sheet indicate that if drug manufacturers fail to offer most-favored nation (MFN) pricing in the U.S., the administration will take a series of additional steps.Continue Reading MFN Drug Pricing Executive Order: New HHS release adds details on prices manufacturers expected to offer