Trump's Newest Biotech Attack

Jan. 12, 2017

In yesterday's press conference, President-elect Donald Trump laid into the pharmaceutical industry, sending biotech shares plunging.

Trump criticized inversion tactics, drug prices and offshore manufacturing, saying the following:

We have to get our drug industry coming back. Our drug industry has been disastrous. They're leaving left and right. They supply our drugs but they don't make them here, to a large extent. And the other thing we have to do is create new bidding procedures for the drug industry, because they're getting away with murder. Pharma has a lot of lobbies, a lot of lobbyists, a lot of power. And there's very little bidding on drugs. We're the largest buyer of drugs in the world, and yet we don't bid properly. We're going to start bidding. We're going to save billions of dollars over a period of time.

At the same time, rumors were flying as vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy claimed Trump asked him to lead a committee on vaccines safety and scientific integrity -- a decision that Trump's transition team later said had not been made.