Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca will offer U.S. patients discounted prices for some prescription drugs, President Trump announced Friday, the second major drug company to strike a deal with the Trump administration in recent weeks.
Under the deal, AstraZeneca will offer its drugs to Medicaid patients at “most-favored-nation” prices, meaning the U.K.-based drugmaker will charge no more than the lowest rate offered in other high-income countries, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz said in a Friday afternoon Oval Office event. AstraZeneca also promised to offer new prescription drugs at most-favored-nation rates, Oz said.
AstraZeneca will also list “all primary care medications” on a government website called TrumpRx, and it will offer discounts for some drugs, including lung disease medication, according to Oz. The company said in a statement that it will offer drugs at up to an 80% discount for “eligible patients with prescriptions for chronic diseases.”
TrumpRx — which is set to launch early next year — will not sell drugs directly, but will instead direct consumers to lower prices elsewhere, Oz said. AstraZeneca said the website will allow patients to buy drugs directly from the company at a “reduced cash price.”
The AstraZeneca announcement came less than two weeks after Pfizer reached a similar deal to offer most-favored-nation rates to Medicaid patients and list drugs on TrumpRx.
Policymakers have struggled with high prescription drug prices for decades. Members of both parties have floated proposals to tie drug prices to the typically much lower rates offered in other countries, but the idea faces legal impediments, and drugmakers have argued that price controls could make it harder for them to invest in research.
Mr. Trump has pressed some of the largest pharmaceutical companies to voluntarily offer drugs to Medicaid patients and new drugs at most-favored-nation rates, floating tighter regulations if companies do not comply. Separately, Mr. Trump has threatened 100% tariffs on pharmaceuticals unless drugmakers are in the process of building U.S.-based plants. AstraZeneca on Friday announced plans to invest in U.S. manufacturing and research facilities.
But questions remain about how the president’s deals with drugmakers will work, and who will feel the difference at the pharmacy counter, some experts caution.
Most-favored-nation pricing could have a muted impact on Medicaid patients, experts say, because the program already has a statutory “best price” protection that guarantees the lowest price offered to any U.S. commercial payer. Also, while it could save states money, Medicaid users typically don’t pay out-of-pocket for their medication.
“Medicaid already enjoys ‘best-price’ protection in the sense that they receive the lowest prices charged to any commercial payer in the United States. Therefore, we are starting out at prices well below the averages seen in the U.S. market,” Darius Lakdawalla, chief scientific officer at the University of Southern California’s Schaeffer Center, told CBS News in reaction to the Pfizer deal.
It’s also unclear how many people would benefit from TrumpRx. For uninsured patients or those with high deductibles, such an option could matter, if their prescriptions are among those listed. But most people obtain their medications through insurance.
“The direct-to-patient stuff is, in my view, a sideshow and branding opportunity for Trump,” Sean Sullivan, a health economist at the University of Washington, told CBS News following the Pfizer agreement. “Most patients have drug coverage. … Very few are going to buy medications with cash, unless the drug is not a covered benefit, like weight loss or erectile dysfunction drugs.”
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