Ep. 93 – BIO’s Fritz Bittenbender on Trump 2.0, MFN Threats & Pharma’s Concessions

President Donald Trump’s demands for “most favored nation” drug pricing presents the biopharma industry with an immense public policy challenge. Drug companies are convinced that meeting the president’s demand to reduce U.S. prices to levels below those of other industrialized countries would decimate the industry. On this episode of The BioCentury Show, Fritz Bittenbender, SVP of Roche's Genentech unit and chairman of BIO, discusses the industry’s responses to the MFN challenge, and some of the under-appreciated nuances of policy options. He notes that reducing or eliminating payments to PBMs would lead to higher insurance premiums. While drug companies are scrambling to meet Trump’s Sept. 29 deadline to make voluntary pricing concessions, Bittenbender says a more comprehensive deal should be made that reduces out-of-pocket costs, preserves patient access and supports biomedical innovation. The interview touches on other hot button public policy issues, presenting the biotech industry’s views on reforming the Medicare drug pricing negotiation program, tariffs, and prospects for reviving the Biosecure Act.

View full story: https://www.biocentury.com/article/657021

#DrugPricing #HealthPolicy #MFN #BIO #DrugPolicy #MedicarePartD #MedicarePartB #PBMs #Tariffs #InnovationVsAccess

00:00 - Introduction
00:48 - MFN Drug Pricing
11:06 - Tariffs
18:27 - China Policy
23:58 - Vaccines
27:03 - IRA