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The White House call for revised enforcement guidelines to promote hospital competition will likely amplify federal scrutiny of hospital mergers, which health economists say have raised prices. The Biden administration order, released Friday, encouraged the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission to review and possibly revise their merger guidelines. It highlighted hospital consolidation, which the order said has harmed consumers. (Evans, 7/10)

The president’s directive also urges the Federal Trade Commission to promote the availability of generic drugs by banning pharmaceutical manufacturers from paying their generic counterparts to delay entry of lower-price versions of medications into the market. Such a ban is consistent with Biden’s support during his campaign for increasing the supply of generics. The idea is also part of legislation before the Senate. (Goldstein, 7/9)

“What we’ve seen over the past few decades is less competition and more concentration that holds our economy back. We see it in big agriculture and big tech and big pharma and the list goes on,” Biden said before signing the executive order at the White House Friday. “Take prescription drugs: just a handful of companies control the market for many vital medicines, giving them leverage over everyone else to charge whatever they want,” the president said. (Clason and Lesniewski, 7/9)

President Biden’s executive order to promote business competition lays out a series of steps to lower prices for prescription drugs, including taking legal action against companies that cooperate to keep generic medicines off the market and allowing states and Indian tribes to import drugs from Canada. The administration also is calling for measures to increase the use of generic drugs and other medicines known as biosimilars, which are essentially generic versions of expensive biological drugs already on the market. (Burton, 7/9)