Eli Lilly CEO Dave Ricks speaks in the Oval Office during an event on weight loss drugs at the White House on November 6, 2025 in Washington.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images
Eli Lilly CEO Dave Ricks said in an interview with CNBC that he opposes the White House’s push to legislate “most-favored-nation” drug pricing.
Lilly was one of more than a dozen drug companies that reached an agreement with the Trump administration last year to bring prescription drug prices in the U.S. in line with those in other wealthy countries. President Donald Trump has long complained that Americans pay higher prices to subsidize lower drug prices in other parts of the world.
The pharmaceutical industry believed the agreement would allay those concerns and thwart attempts to apply the law to “most-favoured-nation” treatment. But the White House has been pushing Congress in recent months to codify elements of the deal. Although the draft document has not been made public, the administration has said it is trying to get drug companies to support the effort.
Lilly doesn’t support that, Ricks said.
“When you put it into a parliamentary process, you never know what’s going to come in or what’s going to come out,” Ricks said. “And I think there are a lot of people who would like to lower prices today and not worry about whether there’s going to be a new drug tomorrow, or whether the American pharmaceutical industry is strong enough to be able to do research in this country. And I’m concerned about those things, so I don’t think that’s a great idea, and we’ve been pretty clear with the administration and Congressional leaders on that point.”
Ricks said he thinks the Trump administration and leadership on The Hill are listening to the company’s concerns, but that Lilly is “going to use every tool we have to combat bad policy, which we think will be bad policy.”
