Trump Teaches a Painful Lesson to Pfizer’s CEO

In one of the rarely positively rated moves in the media, U.S. President Donald Trump recently humiliated the CEO of Pfizer after the pharmaceutical giant known for Viagra raised prices on about one hundred of its drugs. Although this is a move quite common in the local pharmaceutical sector where prices are raised twice a year (in January and in summer), this time Trump got personally involved.

According to the Financial Times, Ian Read was unpleasantly surprised when the president directly accused Pfizer on Twitter of exploiting poor people, shortly after which he received a call from Health Secretary Alex Azar who further explained how angry Trump was about the price increase. Read soon after personally spoke on the phone with the president, deciding to postpone the price increase.

Just talked with Pfizer CEO and @SecAzar on our drug pricing blueprint. Pfizer is rolling back price hikes, so American patients don’t pay more. We applaud Pfizer for this decision and hope other companies do the same. Great news for the American people!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 10, 2018

He was, in fact, the only one to misread the mood in Washington and decided to go for a price increase, while other major manufacturers wisely chose to refrain from raising prices for the time being. Coincidentally or not, shortly after this ‘misunderstanding’, Pfizer announced a restructuring of its management, which the media interpreted as a sign that the 65-year-old Scot would soon pass the baton to someone else. Trump has also cited stopping the rise in drug prices as one of the priorities in his election campaign, but so far he has not dedicated much effort to solving this problem, at least not in a structured manner.