Trump announces deal with AstraZeneca to cut drug prices across US

President Donald Trump announced that he had reached a deal with AstraZeneca Plc to slash consumer prices on some of the company’s drugs, in the second major deal between the White House and a pharmaceutical company seeking to reduce healthcare costs for Americans.

The deal is the latest in what Trump administration officials say are a series of voluntary measures drugmakers are implementing to stave off more draconian moves by the government.

Over the summer, Trump sent letters to 17 of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies with a list of demands.

They included lower prices for the Medicaid insurance program for low-income and disabled people, direct sales of discounted drugs to patients and the introduction of newly approved medicines at the same prices in the US as in other developed countries.

A pact with the British pharmaceutical powerhouse advances the Trump administration’s efforts and may lure other companies to the negotiating table. Soriot broke ranks with his peers in the industry in July, saying the US should pay similar prices for newly developed drugs as other wealthy countries.

The financial implications of the deal remain unclear. The tariff threat for AstraZeneca is somewhat contained because it makes most of the medicine it sells in the US domestically.

In September, Astra launched a new direct-to-consumer platform, where patients can get the diabetes drug Farxiga and the asthma inhaler Airsupra for as much as 70% off their list prices.

Drugs expected to see price cuts under the Trump deal include include Airsupra, Farxiga, and COPD medicine Bevespi, according to a chart displayed at the event.

Soriot was with Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz on Thursday in Virginia, where the company is expanding its US manufacturing as part of its $50 billion investment in the US.

Trump has called on drugmakers to make more of their medicines in the country, and the administration has launched an investigation into whether the lack of local production is a national security threat.

Americans have traditionally paid the highest prices in the world for drugs. The structure positioned the US at the epicenter of a multibillion dollar market that generated scores of breakthrough medicines.

It also allowed wealthy countries in Europe and elsewhere to draft off of American investment and reap the benefits without paying an equivalent share of the cost.