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- We explore the potential impact of Trump’s second term on three aspects of the pharma sector and what the changes might mean for pharma IT.
- First, we expect pharmaceutical benefit managers (PBMs) to face continued scrutiny from Trump’s incoming FTC chairman, Andrew Ferguson, as part of Trump’s initiative to reduce drug prices. Potential impacts on pharma IT companies include increased opportunities for companies providing solutions for health economic outcomes research, real-world evidence and patient reported outcomes.
- Second, we expect the Trump administration to continue its push for expedited drug approvals and funding and tax incentives for research and development, while increasing use of artificial intelligence in drug discovery and development and emphasizing post-market surveillance to monitor patient outcomes. Potential impacts on pharma IT companies include increased opportunities for those focusing on real-world evidence and pharmacovigilance data as well as those focused on streamlining processes for collecting data and submitting it to the FDA.
- We expect the administration’s focus on bolstering domestic manufacturing and reducing U.S. reliance on foreign supply chains to lead to renewed interest in onshoring drug development and manufacturing by both pharma companies and contract development and manufacturing organizations. Potential impacts on pharma IT companies center around opportunities in supply chain logistics.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Looking beyond vaccines: Three key areas to focus on
Renewed focus on drug pricing
Accelerated drug approvals and regulatory reforms
Emphasis on domestic manufacturing
Change likely to create new opportunities
Pharma IT indexes down year-over-year
Pharma IT M&A: Notable transactions include Greenphire and BuildClinical
Pharma IT private placements: Notable transactions include Aqemia and Manas AI
Looking beyond vaccines: Three key areas to focus on
Donald Trump’s return to the presidency has generated a mix of optimism and uncertainty in the pharmaceutical industry. While much of the public discussion has focused on Trump’s selection of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and his potential impact on vaccines, in this report we focus on other areas including drug pricing, regulatory reforms and manufacturing, and trade policies to assess the potential impact of Trump’s second term on the pharma sector and what the changes might mean for pharma IT.
Renewed focus on drug pricing
A primary concern for the pharmaceutical sector is the administration’s commitment to lowering drug prices and increasing price transparency. During his first term, Trump proposed several policies aimed at reducing the cost of prescription drugs. These included efforts to negotiate drug prices for Medicare, reform the pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) system, and implement international pricing reforms. Trump’s “America First” healthcare plan included provisions aimed at lowering drug costs by enabling Medicare to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies, an effort to make the system more transparent and competitive.
This last initiative (the biggest pharmaceutical regulation change in several years) came to fruition under the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022, which granted Medicare authorization to negotiate prices for its costliest prescription drugs. Prices for the first ten Medicare-negotiated drugs were released last August and are expected to go into effect in 2026. Although it’s unclear whether the Trump administration supports this change as it was laid out in the IRA, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently announced plans to proceed with negotiating Medicare prices for the next 15 drugs selected under the IRA, listed in Table 1.