Dec 10 (Reuters) - Eli Lilly ( LLY ) CEO David Ricks on

Tuesday said at the Economic Club of Washington that tax and

regulation reform and drug affordability were some policy

focuses for the company in a second Trump administration.

President-elect Donald Trump met with Ricks and the chief

executive of industry lobbying group PhRMA in Florida last week.

It was also reported that Pfizer ( PFE ) CEO Albert Bourla

attended.

The Lilly CEO did not share details of that conversation

during an interview with Carlyle Group cofounder David

Rubenstein. Nor did he provide more information about the exact

reforms he was targeting.

He said the regulatory situation in the U.S. had evolved in

a negative way for the pharmaceuticals industry over the last

four years.

"My experience having done this for eight years is there's

often more common ground than you think," said Ricks, who has

been CEO of Lilly since 2017.

Ricks said that the Trump administration may raise the

policy argument that other developed countries should pay more

for drugs, and then prices in the U.S. can be lowered.

Americans pay more for medicines than people in any other

country.

Drugmaker executives have previously said they will push to

revamp the new law that allows Medicare to negotiate prices for

its costliest prescription drugs once Trump is back in office,

as well as reform rules governing pharmacy middlemen that

negotiate volume-based discounts with drug manufacturers.

Ricks said Lilly had helped bring the cost of some of its

insulins down to $35 a month by "compressing what these

middlemen get".

Anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump's pick to

lead the United States' top health agency, was also present at

Ricks' meeting with the president-elect, according to an Axios

report last week.

The report said Trump and the company executives discussed

how the public and private sectors can collaborate on finding

cures for cancer, among other topics.