Trump announces deal with UK pharma giant to give Americans ‘major discounts’ on prescriptions

President Donald Trump announced Friday during a White House press conference that one of the United Kingdom’s largest pharmaceutical companies, AstraZeneca, is committing to give Americans “major discounts” on their prescription drugs.

Just last month, Trump announced Pfizer had reached an agreement with his administration to lower prices for American consumers — part of Trump’s “Most Favored Nation” initiative. Speaking alongside Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot and other officials, Trump discussed how much prices could drop.

“AstraZeneca, the largest pharmaceutical manufacturer in the United Kingdom, is committing to offer Americans major discounts on their vast catalog of prescription drugs — one of the great companies by the way,” Trump said. “And a most favored nation’s pricing clause, so most favored nation is you’re gonna pay whatever the lowest price anywhere in the world is. That’s what you’re going to be paying.”

“I had it going very well in my first term, but we were interrupted by a rigged election. So I was unable to carry it forward. We started it,” Trump added. “One of the reasons I wanted to run again was we had to have favored nations where the world is not going to be paying just a fraction, just a tiny fraction of what we were paying.”

Trump went on to thank the officials standing with him, as well as Soriot, saying that the popular prescription drugs will be listed online at TrumpRX.

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“AstraZeneca will also list many of their most popular drugs online at TrumpRX.gov,” Trump said. “I don’t know why they put the name Trump. I did not tell him to do it, but I’m honored to let him do it … At heavily reduced most favored nations cost, Americans can expect discounts. And, as I said, it could be in many cases way over 100 percent.

“As an example one particular drug that’s hot very hot, 654% on inhalers. COPD and asthma as well as certain diabetics medications, they’re going to be averaging about 654% reduction in price,” Trump said. “In addition, all medications AstraZeneca introduces to the American market going forward will also be sold at these heavily discounted rates.”

Trump also announced that AstraZeneca will invest $50 billion in the United States over the next five years “for research and development of new drugs and to onshore manufacturing facilities.”

The announcement comes just one day after AstraZeneca announced plans to invest $4.5 billion in a new manufacturing facility in Virginia, part of its broader $50 billion U.S. investment. According to the company’s press release, an additional $500 million is also proposed for the Virginia facility “to support the enhanced manufacturing capability of a broader range of medicines, including cancer treatments.”

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