1 August 2018 - The US needs a health secretary with the mettle to enact painful industry reforms.

When Pfizer reversed price rises on 100 products last month, the drugmaker handed Donald Trump a clear-cut win that vindicated his strategy of using Twitter as a modern bully pulpit. The US president had said Pfizer should be “ashamed” of the move, prompting the drug maker to make an unprecedented U-turn.

Since then, other pharma companies have been tripping over themselves to promise restraint on US prices, and Mr Trump has declared victory in his long-running campaign to stop the industry “getting away with murder”. But the president should not be fooled. While Pfizer’s climbdown will hurt sales, most of the pledges from drug makers are weasel words.

Read Financial Times article