The Trump administration has reached a deal with pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca to cut its drug prices, marking it the second drugmaker in as many weeks to agree to President Trump’s demand for lower medicine prices.
Friday’s announcement comes 10 days after Mr. Trump struck a deal with Pfizer after pressing drug companies to adopt “Most Favored Nation” pricing in the U.S., which ties American drug prices to lower costs overseas.
“It’s pretty beautiful to watch AstraZeneca, the largest pharmaceutical manufacturer in the United Kingdom, committing to offer Americans major discounts on their vast catalog of prescription drugs,” Mr. Trump said in remarks from the Oval Office.
AstraZeneca will sell some of its drugs at a discount through the TrumpRx website, which is planned to go live next year.
Mr. Trump also announced that U.K.-based AstraZeneca will spend $50 billion in the U.S. over the next five years to build research and development and manufacturing facilities. AstraZeneca broke ground on a new plant Thursday in Charlottesville, Virginia. The new plan will create 3,600 jobs, Mr. Trump said.
AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot called the deal “a big win for the economy and for taxpayers.”
Americans currently pay for brand-name drugs at more than three times the rate paid in other wealthy countries, namely those in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, even after accounting for discounts manufacturers provide in the U.S., according to government data.
The U.S. also has less than 5% of the world’s population, but about 75% of global pharmaceutical profits come from American taxpayers.
Presidents from both political parties have long sought to reduce the high-price burden Americans shoulder for prescription drugs.
While drug manufacturers benefit from large research subsidies and massive healthcare spending by the U.S., American consumers do not receive the savings of that benefit.
Instead, drug manufacturers discount their products abroad to gain access to foreign markets and subsidize those discounts through higher prices charged in the U.S., as Americans are subsidizing drug manufacturer profits and foreign health systems, both in development and once the drugs are sold.
Last May, Mr. Trump signed an executive order directing the administration to take numerous actions to bring U.S. drug prices in line with those paid by similar nations.
He sent letters in late July to major pharmaceutical manufacturers, summarizing what they should do to bring down the prices of prescription drugs in the U.S. to match the lowest prices offered in other developed nations.
“In case after case, our citizens pay massively higher prices than other nations pay for the same pill, from the same factory, effectively subsidizing socialism abroad with skyrocketing prices at home,” Mr. Trump said at the time.
“So, we would spend tremendous amounts of money in order to provide inexpensive drugs to another country. And when I say the price is different, you can see some examples where the price is beyond anything — four times, five times different.”
