President Donald Trump met with CEOs of some of America's biggest and most profitable pharmaceutical companies at the White House on Tuesday, saying he expects them to lower drug prices and bring jobs back to the United States.

'You folks have done a terrific job over the years, but we have to get prices down for a lot of reasons. We have no choice,' Trump said.

'For Medicare, for Medicaid, we have to get the prices way down.'

The federal government is the world's largest buyer of medicines and medical equipment.

The president predicted that relieving regulatory burdens and dramatically shortening the Food and Drug Administration's approval process for new drugs would save the Treasury 'tens of billions of dollars.'

'The pricing has been astronomical for our country. We've got to do better,' he said.

President Donald Trump met with pharmaceutical industry leaders on Tuesday, demanding lower drug prices for Medicare and Medicaid,and asking CEOs to produce more medications in the United States (Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier is shown at left)

Trump promised to dramatically cut pharma regulations and shorten the time it takes the Food and Drug Administration to approve new pharmaceutical compounds

Trump said repeatedly during his presidential campaign that he would renegotiate prices for a wide range of government purchases, including pharmaceuticals, computer technology and military hardware.

On Tuesday he claimed Medicare, 'the biggest dog in the market,' was guilty of 'price fixing.'

'The numbers we pay!' he lamented, promising to spur 'competition and bidding wars' among the people in the room.

Trump also urged the industry 'to move your companies back to the United States. And I want you to manufacture in the United States.'

'We're going to be lowering taxes big league.'

'Other countries have no regulation. and you go there for that reason,' he acknowledged.

CEOs at the White House for the meeting included the leaders of Amgen, Celgene, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Merck and Novartis.

The carrot accompanying Trump's stick is a pledge to dramatically shrink federal regulations while rewriting the FDA's playbook.

It can take up to 15 years and $2.5 billion to shepherd a new drug through the FDA's cumbersome approval process, Trump said on Tuesday as CEOs nodded in agreement

'We have to do better accelerating cures,' Trump said, vowing to 'get the approval process much faster.'

'You're going to get your products either approved or not approved, but it will be a quick process and it's not going to take 15 years,' he said.

The president also declared that the government should be more willing to green-light experimental drug therapies that typically face an uphill climb because of their limited market share and the unforeseen risks they pose to patients who serve as guinea pigs.

'One thing that's always disturbed me,' he said, 'is they come up with a new drug for a patient who is terminal, and the FDA says we can't have this drug used on the patient.'

'But they say, "But the patient within four weeks will be dead."

'They say, "Well, we still can't approve the drug".'

Trump promised a reduction in 'unnecessary' pharmaceutical regulations on a level he hasn't mentioned in the past.

'Somebody said the other day, "What's the percentage of regulation?" Trump recalled, in reference to his planned cuts.

'I said, "Maybe 75 per cent." It could even be up to 80 per cent, which is what you need.'

Trump signed an executive order on Monday that dramatically pares back federal regulations by requiring agencies to cut two existing regulations for every new rule they introduce.

'This will be the biggest such act that our country has ever seen. There will be regulation, there will be control, but it will be normalized control,' Trump said as he signed the order in the Oval Office, surrounded by a group of small business owners.