President Donald Trump announced agreements with nine major drug companies to offer products at a lower price. Companies involved in the deal include Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim, Genentech, Gilead Sciences, GSK, Merck, Novartis, and Sanofi.
“This represents the greatest victory for patient affordability in the history of American health care, by far, and every single American will benefit,” Trump said. “So, this is the biggest thing ever to happen on drug pricing and on health care. This will have a tremendous impact on health care itself.”
The agreements reduce prices for drugs assisting with type two diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), hepatitis B and C, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and some cancers, among others, a White House fact sheet explains. Those involved in the deal will further “invest at least $150 billion collectively in U.S. manufacturing in the near term,” the sheet adds.
The Trump administration has also announced deals with pharmaceutical companies Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca, EMD Serono, and Pfizer.
The deals bolster President Trump’s May executive order, which directed drug prices to be cut by an estimated 59%.
“The United States has less than five percent of the world’s population and yet funds around three quarters of global pharmaceutical profits,” the order read. “This egregious imbalance is orchestrated through a purposeful scheme in which drug manufacturers deeply discount their products to access foreign markets, and subsidize that decrease through enormously high prices in the United States.”
President Trump then sent a letter to pharmaceutical companies in July, demanding that they lower prescription drug prices. “Right now, brand name drug prices in the United States are up to three times higher on average than anywhere else for the identical medicines,” Trump’s letters say. “This unacceptable burden on hardworking American families ends with my Administration.”
