President Trump promised to lower drug costs through more generic drugs, improved Medicare rules, and less “foreign freeloading” on US companies’ research.

Carolyn Kaster / AP

President Donald Trump unveiled his “American Patients First” proposal to lower drug prices on Friday, in a long-awaited speech on an issue he campaigned on. “We will have tough negotiations, more competition, and much lower drug prices,” said Trump in the speech held at the White House Rose Garden. “Very soon.” Prescription drugs cost the US some $329 billion in 2016, according to federal estimates. Price hikes — for EpiPens, cancer drugs, and an antiparasitic medication that jumped from $13.75 to $750 per pill — have raised the political profile of the issue.

Need some context for today’s convos about lowering #prescription drug costs? Check out some of the trends in U.S. Rx drug spending. https://t.co/2CauCgfyek https://t.co/bglDawv2D5

The speech comes days after revelations that pharma behemoth Novartis paid Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, some $1.2 million last year for access to the president and his administration.

During the presidential campaign, Trump said he would force the government to negotiate lower drug prices. During his presidential transition, he said drug companies were “getting away with murder,” comments that caused panic in the industry. In his Friday speech, he criticized pharmaceutical industry lobbying, which outmuscles many other industries, and outlined his new “blueprint” for lower drug prices. But Trump stopped short of letting the US government agencies directly negotiate drug prices, including the $675 billion Medicare program. The president described such negotiation as “foreign freeloading” when done overseas, leaving the US with the world’s highest pharmaceutical prices. Instead, Trump focused on four areas: —increasing the transparency of drug prices seen in ads and by Medicare patients; —preventing the manipulation of FDA, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act drug quality rules to force cheaper drugs out of patients’ hands; —promoting lower-cost drugs for Medicare and Medicaid patients; —and stopping foreign countries from negotiating lower drug prices with pharma, which the administration has argued forces US consumers to pay higher prices. “We will also demand fairness overseas,” Trump said, noting that some drugs that cost only a few dollars in foreign countries are sold for hundreds of dollars in the US. Pharmaceutical and biotech industry stocks jumped in response to the speech, reflecting industry relief over the new plan, which calls for Congress to pass laws giving more power to insurers who administer Medicare drug benefits to negotiate better drug prices, a daunting prospect in an election year. Congress now requires Medicare to pay for all prescription drugs approved by the FDA, and most insurers follow Medicare’s example.

Biotechs = way up Pharma = way up https://t.co/Za0tUuhAIQ