> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.fdaweb.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Public Citizen Rebuffs Draft Pharma Executive Order
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/public-citizen-rebuffs-draft-pharma-executive-order/
- Published: 2017-06-23T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T22:31:17.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: Drugs, #legacy-id-D5139012

“Big Pharma has captured the Trump administration.” That is the bottom line in a Public Citizen [analysis](https://www.citizen.org/trump-drug-prices-order?ref=fdaweb.com) of a [draft executive order](https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/trum-drug-pricing-eo-draft.pdf?ref=fdaweb.com#overlay-context=trump-drug-prices-order) on prescriptiondrug pricing and innovation that president Trump is expected to soon sign. The analysis echoes concern from experts who talked to the *New York Times* earlier this week ([see story](https://www.fdaweb.com/critics-question-trump-drug-price-control-plan/)).

The draft would do “little other than direct a series of reviews and analyses,” Public Citizen says. “The main aim of that exercise is to identify means to reduce safety standards and expand monopoly protections for the pharmaceutical corporations, failing to reduce costs — and even potentially raising them. The Trump order shifts blame for pharma’s price gouging to federal programs, hospitals and Medicaid, among others — to anything except the pharma corporations themselves. Shamefully, the order even blames developing countries and outlines a plan to intensify the patent abuses that already cost lives and entrench unaffordability around the world.”

The group says the best way to lower prices is to take on the pharmaceutical lobby. It says that instead of the non-measures in the draft order, the Trump administration should:

- **End monopolies and allow competition.** The government should authorize generic competition with monopolized patented medications as a means to reduce costs for public programs.
- **Block backroom corporate deals that keep medications out of reach.** Federal agencies should litigate aggressively to prevent, stop and recoup ill-gotten gains of pay-for-delay deals and prevent anti-competitive mergers and acquisitions.
- **Crack down on pharma fraud.** Federal agencies must crack down on corporate crime, including routine pharma practices to overcharge the states, manipulate safety data and illegally market their products.
- **Support meaningful legislative reform**, including the Medicare negotiation powers Trump has promised, as well as the Stop Price Gouging Act, introduced by U.S. Sens. **Sherrod Brown** (D-Ohio) and **Kirsten Gillibrand** (D-N.Y.) and Reps. **Mark Pocan** (D-Wis.) and **Marcy Kaptur** (D-Ohio), to stop manufacturers from dramatic increases for medications such as the EpiPen and opioid addiction treatments.