Trump announces new drug pricing deals with 9 pharma companies

President Donald Trump announced a new round of drug-pricing agreements with international pharmaceutical companies and some smaller biotechs on Monday, part of a push to make healthcare more affordable for Americans.

Deals were signed with nine companies including Astellas, BeOne Medicines, CSL, BridgeBIO, Sun Pharmaceutical, Teva and UCB.

These companies have offered drugs to state Medicaid programs at most-favored-nation prices, Trump said in an Oval Office event with executives of the companies, describing this as “a tremendous discount, which should bring down the cost of your medical care by tremendous amounts.”

U.S. patients currently pay by far the most for prescription medicines, often nearly three times more than in other developed nations, and Trump has been pressuring drugmakers to lower their prices to what patients pay elsewhere.

The deals will build on agreements the administration struck with 17 of the world’s largest drugmakers, including Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Amgen, starting last year. The drugmakers agreed to offer lower prices comparable to what is paid in other developed countries, referred to as “most-favored-nation” pricing.

Those companies agreed to cut some prices for federal health programs and sell some medicines directly to patients through a Trump-branded website, in return for tariff relief.

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/business