President Donald Trump has sent letters to pharmaceutical companies, aiming to compel them to lower drug prices in the US to match the lowest prices offered in other developed nations, a move that could significantly reduce costs and disrupt the current system of pharmacy benefit managers.

President Donald Trump surprised pharma CEOs on Thursday with letters demanding they acquiesce to his most-favored drug-pricing scheme (see what we did there?) by the end of September, setting up a late-summer lobbying fight for the industry.

He is requiring drugmakers to stipulate they would not offer other developed nations better prices than what they offer the United States, and said his administration would provid