AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot shakes hands with President Trump in the Oval Office, as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. looks on.
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AstraZeneca became the second drugmaker to reach a deal with the Trump administration to offer lower prices to Medicaid and offer some of its drugs at a discount through TrumpRxa government website aimed at facilitating direct-to-consumer sales.
“In other words, the lowest price in the world, that’s what we’re getting,” President Trump said at a press conference in the Oval Office on Friday. The centerpiece of the agreement is most favored nation pricing for drugs sold to Medicaid. This would tie Medicaid prices to the lowest prices paid in other developed countries.
As part of the agreement, AstraZeneca will also offer discounts of up to 80% off list prices on direct-to-consumer sales, according to a company press release. Its medications include inhalers like Bevespi Aerosphere for people with COPD and Airsupra for people with asthma. UK-based AstraZeneca also announced plans to expand drug manufacturing and research in the United States.
In exchange for these commitments, the pharmaceutical company will benefit from an exemption from certain prices for three years.
The White House revealed its plan for TrumpRx and a similar plan agreement with Pfizer on September 30. The website will help patients access medications at lower prices, bypassing health insurance.
TrumpRx is part of a broader initiative that the administration says aims to bring prices paid by Americans more in line with those paid in other developed countries.
This announcement follows a decree in May and letters sent to 17 pharmaceutical companies over the summer to pressure them to voluntarily lower their prices.
The TrumpRx website is expected to launch sometime in 2026 and would direct consumers to pharmaceutical companies’ direct-to-consumer websites to fulfill orders.
The impact of the Trump administration’s deals with pharmaceutical companies on consumers is unclear. Medicaid and its beneficiaries, for example, already pay some of the lowest drug prices. And people with health insurance could spend less on their drugs through co-pays rather than buying them directly from AstraZeneca.
AstraZeneca also said Thursday that it would invest an additional $500 million in a new manufacturing facility in Virginia, bringing the investment to $4.5 billion. It’s part of a $50 billion investment announced in July to expand manufacturing facilities in California, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Texas and Virginia, as well as other research and development efforts.
“To all the pharmaceutical companies, we’re going to all of you, grab a shovel,” Dr. Mehmet Oz, who heads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said at the news conference.
Trump said his administration had secured a total of $18 trillion in commitments to relocate pharmaceutical manufacturing. NPR was not immediately able to independently confirm this figure.
