The Food and Drug Administration will examine the affordability of drugs when giving it good vouchers to companies that accelerate the approvals of certain treatments, the commissioner of the agency Marty Makary said on Friday.
In June, the FDA announced a national priority plan which aims to reduce the time for examining medication to one to two months for companies which, according to them, support “American national interests”. But the previous announcements on the proper program did not explicitly mention to make medicines more affordable as a criterion.
“We include the affordability of drugs as a national priority,” Makary told CNBC.
The drop in drug prices is a key objective of the Trump administration, which faces a difficult balance because it threatens to impose up to 200% of prices on pharmaceuticals imported in the United States in order to rehorse the manufacture of medicines.
The Food and Drugs Commissioner Marty Makary is speaking at a press conference on the abolition of synthetic dyes of the American food supply, at the head office of health and social services in Washington, DC on April 22, 2025.
Nathan Posner | Anadolu | Getty images
Makary added that President Donald Trump is “very categorical about the fact that he would lower medicines for Americans, and he does not like Americans to be scammed with drugs that are two, five, 10 times higher” in the United States compared to other developed countries.
But we do not know how the Trump administration will take into account affordability when examining a drug, as prices for launching a product are generally determined after approval in the United States
The FDA website currently describes four examples of “national priorities” that will be used to determine which companies will get a good as part of the new program. This includes the fight against a health crisis in the United States, the supply of “more innovative healing” to Americans, to meet unmet public health needs and “the increase in the manufacture of domestic drugs as a problem of national security”.
The affordability of drugs may have been included previously, according to a report by Wall Street Journal in June.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Health and Social Services confirmed that the FDA would consider the affordability of drugs for the program, adding that the criteria are not limited to previous examples.
When he was asked to provide examples of a health crisis that companies can meet their drugs, Makary said he wanted to see a remedy for type 1 diabetes, more treatments for neurodegenerative diseases and a universal flu vaccine “so that we do not have to try to guess what a deformation happens.”
He also said that he wanted to see more treatments for stadium cancer 4, or when the disease has spread from his original site to parts far from the body.
“We have a committee set up which will determine which products and companies will get these vouchers as part of a pilot,” said Makary. “But we have to try new things. We have to ask ourselves why it takes so long to come to the market? And we want to see more remedies and significant treatments for Americans.”
The FDA will distribute new vouchers this year. After a one -year pilot phase, the agency can increase the number of rapid approvals it gives to companies.
Some Wall Street analysts previously said that the good program could be more effective than prices to encourage drug manufacturers to make their manufacture in the United States
But questions remain on the risk of accelerating medication reviews at 30 days, which is the fastest that the FDA has ever done.
Another potential concern is whether the FDA will offer good to the Trump administration political allies, which could include companies that agency staff would normally examine.