Eli Lilly was asked to produce more insulin; Pfizer to produce more of its top-selling cancer drug Ibrance and its cholesterol drug Lipitor; and London-based AstraZeneca to consider a new headquarters in the U.S., according to two sources.
On Tuesday, Trump announced a deal with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla to cut drug prices in exchange for relief from planned tariffs on imported pharmaceuticals. “The United States is done subsidizing healthcare of the rest of the world,” Trump said in a event in the Oval Office.
Just as important as the deals themselves is the optics – they must be announced from the White House, two sources said.
Eli Lilly learned this the hard way when it excluded Trump from its announcement of two new manufacturing sites in September and got a call from the administration asking why they didn’t allow the president to announce it himself.
A spokesperson for Eli Lilly said it had not been asked to increase insulin production and that it takes “pride in regularly inviting White House officials to our announcements.”
Pfizer and AstraZeneca declined to comment. The White House declined to comment on Eli Lilly’s announcement or on specific details of the administration’s plans.
But a proposal sent by the agency to Congress in June would significantly expand its authority and reach.
The bill would more than quadruple its financing power to $250 billion from $60 billion as well as establish an equity fund tasked with shoring up key sectors, including infrastructure, energy, critical and rare earth minerals and supply chains – pretty much anything “in the economic and national security interests of the United States,” according to a copy of the plan reviewed by Reuters.
The agency is still waiting for Congress to approve its budget as well as the confirmation of Apollo Global Management co-founder Leon Black’s son, Ben, to run it. A spokesman for Black said he couldn’t comment on International Development Finance Corporation matters before his Senate confirmation.
An International Development Finance Corporation official declined to comment on specific deals, but said its mandate is to “mobilize private sector investment for projects that advance U.S. foreign policy and economic interests, including projects that reduce reliance on critical minerals and materials controlled by China.”
The administration is also planning to use the $550 billion Japan is giving the U.S. as part of its trade agreement to seed a new U.S. Investment Accelerator run by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, a U.S. official told Reuters. Japan has until the end of Trump’s term to provide the funding.
Both the Commerce Department’s Investment Accelerator and the Development Finance Corporation are said to replace a sovereign wealth fund Trump had originally planned, but has since scrapped, three sources told Reuters.
