President-elect Donald Trump vowed Wednesday to change the way that drugs are reimbursed and said the pharmaceutical industry was "getting away with murder."

"Pharma has a lot of lobbies, a lot of lobbyists and a lot of power," he said during the opening remarks of his first press conference since the election.

Several drug companies have been under congressional scrutiny for raising the prices of their products, and in recent years spending on drugs has grown significantly faster than other areas of medicine.

As a solution to get costs under control and save "billions of dollars," Trump said he would "open up more bidding for medications."

“There’s very little bidding on drugs,” he said. “We’re the largest buyer of drugs in the world and yet we don’t bid properly.”

While Trump didn't elaborate on the details of how the bidding would occur, he proposed during his campaign to allow Medicare, the government's program to cover people who are disabled or 65 or older, to negotiate prices. The practice is currently banned under federal law.

Such a policy proposal is unusual for a Republican; Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders made similar proposals during their bid for the nomination. President Barack Obama pledged to allow the practice when he ran for the White House, but did not include it as part of his signature health care law, the Affordable Care Act. Though he has tucked the provision into budget proposals, it has failed to gain traction in Congress.

Still, members of both parties in recent years have been vocal about their desire to rein in drug prices and have skewered pharmaceutical company CEOs for their price gouging practices during public hearings.

Shortly after Trump's comments, the Nasdaq biotechnology index dipped 3.4 percent, just as the industry is in the middle of its major investor conference in San Francisco, the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference.

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, tweeted shortly after the comments that allowing negotiation by Medicare would harm beneficiaries, though it wasn't clear whether the tweet was a direct response to Trump's comments.

"A refresh on private negotiation in #Medicare #PartD & why interfering w/ it could negatively impact beneficiaries," the group tweeted, sharing a link about their public position on the matter, which states that allowing such negotiations to take place would reduce access for patients.