NIH Director Bhattacharya says Trump admin will cut out middlemen making drug prices expensive

Director of the National Institutes of Health Jay Bhattacharya said Monday that the Trump administration would be cutting out the middlemen, who, he said, make drug prices in the U.S. so expensive.

"Right now there are a whole bunch of middlemen called pharmacy benefit managers," Bhattacharya said on the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show. "Their job is to sort of negotiate good prices for health insurers with the pharmaceutical manufacturers. Under this new regime, with this most favored nation, there is a kind of idea where the prices will come down to the lowest levels that we see among developed countries. 

"What need do you have for that middleman to negotiate prices when we already have the drug companies giving excellent prices to the health insurers?" he continued. 

Trump on Monday signed an executive order to lower prescription drug prices in the U.S. He said prices would drop "between 59%, 80%, 90%."

Trump said pharmaceutical companies often attribute higher drug costs in the U.S. to research and development costs when compared to other countries.

"Patients themselves will all benefit almost immediately, as soon as the prices start to come down, because they won't have to put into their premiums such high drug prices and patient co-pays will come down as well," Bhattacharya said. "You won't have to pay so much out of pocket when you go to the doctor anymore."