President Trump announces partnership with Pfizer to lower drug prices
President Trump announced TrumpRx, a partnership with Pfizer that aims to reduce drug costs.
President Donald Trump announced Friday that No. 2 pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has agreed to lower U.S. drug prices.
A UK-based pharmaceutical company will reduce the price of drugs it sells to Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for low-income households. The company also plans to sell drugs next year through TrumpRx, a new website that will facilitate the sale of drugs directly to consumers, Trump said.
On September 30, President Trump announced a similar “most-favored-nation” agreement with Pfizer to sell medicines at lower prices through Medicaid.
In an announcement last week, President Trump said that any Pfizer drug introduced to the U.S. market would be sold at a price no higher than the price in comparable countries. The agreement is based on an executive order signed by President Trump in March establishing a most-favored-nation policy for drug pricing.
President Trump has threatened to impose 100% tariffs on brand-name drugs imported into the United States to pressure drug companies to bring drug manufacturing back to the United States. Pharmaceutical companies that have already started building manufacturing plants in the United States will be exempt from tariffs.
AstraZeneca on Thursday held a groundbreaking ceremony for a $4.5 billion drug manufacturing facility in Charlottesville, Virginia. The plant will produce raw materials for weight loss, blood pressure, cholesterol and anti-cancer drugs, creating 600 jobs, the company said.
Other pharmaceutical companies, including Eli Lilly and Roche, have also announced that they will build major new domestic drug manufacturing facilities in the United States.
Friday’s announcement was joined by AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot, who said the tariffs influenced the drugmaker’s decision to expand manufacturing in the United States.
“I don’t know what Mr. Pascal meant, but behind the scenes he said tariffs were a big reason why he came here,” Trump said.
In addition to drug discounts for Medicaid, AstraZeneca will also lower prices on drugs it sells directly to consumers through the TrumpRx website. Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said AstraZeneca medicines, including inhalers to treat lung diseases and diabetes drugs, will be sold at a discount on the new website.
Oz said AstraZeneca’s price deal and the start of construction on its Virginia factory sends “a signal to all countries around the world to stop being freeloaders of American innovation.”
At a Cabinet meeting on Thursday, September 9, President Trump said his administration had reached agreements with other unnamed drug companies on most-favored-nation pricing. Other countries have historically paid lower list prices than the United States for new brand-name drugs.
“We were giving subsidies to the whole world,” President Trump told the Cabinet. “The whole world is paying a fraction of what the United States is paying.”
