Australians could miss out on access to “life-changing” medicines under US President Donald Trump’s plans to cut drug costs for Americans.

Trump signed an executive order in May ordering US drug manufacturers to lower their prices by September 29 (US time).

It said if voluntary compliance wasn’t enough to lower US drug prices, the Trump administration could “propose a rule-making plan to impose most-favoured pricing”.

“Most-favoured pricing” refers to a pricing policy that would lower US prices to align with those of other nations.

Medicines Australia chief executive Elizabeth de Somer said the plan was “concerning” for Australia as it could reduce access to pharmaceuticals from the US.

“If the US decided to benchmark their prices to Australia, that would have a big impact because Australian companies and multinational companies would not bring their products to Australia if it was going to impact their ability to sell them in the US,” de Somer said.

She said it could affect Australians’ access to newer, “life-changing” medicines.

“Companies are already making decisions to delay launching new medicines,” de Somer said.

“It’s really those new medicines … that may be life-changing and life-saving for Australians that may get delayed coming here, whilst companies navigate the US environment before they bring them to Australia.

“Some of the new cancer medicines may be delayed.”

In a separate announcement, Trump said he would impose a 100 per cent tariff on branded or patented pharmaceutical product imports from Wednesday – unless the company behind them is building a manufacturing plant in the US.

Pharmaceuticals are one of Australia’s biggest exports to the US, worth $2.2 billion.

But de Somer said the pricing proposal would have a more detrimental impact on Australian patients’ access to medicines than tariffs.

“Tariffs would have a detrimental impact on US consumers’ access to medicines, because it would probably put the price of medicines in the US up,” she said.

“But Australians may miss out on new medicines and not get them at all if the reference pricing policy was implemented.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese locked in a face-to-face meeting with Trump for October 20 while he was in the US for the United Nations General Assembly.

“We believe in free, fair and open trade. We don’t believe in tariffs … I’m sure that the Prime Minister will put that position to the president when he’s in the US,” de Somer said.

-AAP