According to economics professor and professor at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice Jonathan Skinner, lowering the prices of drugs is necessary.

“It’s certainly true that when you give drug companies a monopoly through the patent system on particular drugs that they’ve developed and there’s a general policy that Medicare and private health insurance have to pay whatever it is that the drug companies charge,” Skinner said. “It’s not surprising that the prices they charge are very high.”

Skinner added that he believes Azar to have a firm understanding of drug pricing from his experience in the private sector and said that it will be interesting to see whether the secretary is able to bring a “stronger set of tools” to cut back on prices based on his time at Eli Lilly.