President Trump announced nine new pharmaceutical pricing agreements from the Oval Office on Monday, expanding his most-favored-nation drug initiative to cover nearly 90 percent of the branded drug market, a pace of deal-making no previous administration has matched.
Flanked by executives from the nine companies, Trump called the expansion "a major expansion of one of our signature affordability initiatives" and said the agreements would force drugmakers to offer American patients their lowest global prices. The companies, Alcon, Astellas Pharma, BeOne Medicines, BridgeBio, CSL, Kyowa Kirin, Sun Pharma, Teva Pharmaceuticals, and UCB, join 17 larger firms that signed similar deals stretching back to last fall, bringing the total to 26.
The White House projects the agreements will save Americans billions of dollars on drugs that treat hemophilia, Parkinson's disease, macular degeneration, glaucoma, liver disease, skin conditions, and several forms of cancer. Every state Medicaid program will have access to the lower prices, and all new medicines the nine companies launch going forward are guaranteed MFN pricing under the terms.
Beyond pricing, the nine companies committed a collective $19.6 billion for domestic manufacturing. Four of them also pledged raw pharmaceutical ingredients to the Strategic Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Reserve, or SAPIR, a federal stockpile designed to reduce American dependence on foreign drug supply chains.
UCB committed 163 tons of levetiracetam, an anticonvulsant used to control seizures. Sun Pharma pledged 71.4 tons of clindamycin and 6.75 tons of doxycycline, both antibiotics. Teva Pharmaceuticals offered 45 metric tons of metronidazole, an antibiotic used for bacterial and parasitic infections, plus 4.8 tons of amlodipine, a blood-pressure medication. Astellas contributed 25 kilograms of tacrolimus, an immunosuppressant that helps prevent organ rejection in transplant patients.
Those SAPIR donations alone total roughly 290 metric tons of active ingredients, material the United States would otherwise source largely from overseas, often from countries whose reliability in a supply crisis is far from guaranteed. The Washington Examiner noted that the nine companies committed billions more in U.S. research and development investment alongside the ingredient pledges.
The broader political backdrop for these deals is a Republican Party racking up wins across the board, from gubernatorial primaries to policy fights in federal court. Drug pricing, long a vulnerability for the GOP, now sits squarely in the win column.
The deals arrive as drug prices are already falling at a rate not seen in more than 60 years. Pharmaceutical prices dropped 0.8 percent in July alone and have declined 3.1 percent over the prior year, according to figures cited by the Washington Examiner, the steepest annual decline since at least the mid-1960s.
Chris Klomp, a senior adviser to HHS Secretary RFK Jr., framed the numbers in kitchen-table terms:
"These are real impacts for everyday Americans in their pockets. It's affordability. It's the president fighting for affordability."
Trump himself was characteristically direct about the scale of the achievement. Speaking from the Oval Office, he told reporters:
"I'm thrilled to announce a major expansion of one of our signature affordability initiatives, something that people have been trying to get for years, for decades, and I'm not even sure that other presidents tried."
That last line lands harder than it might seem. Previous administrations talked about drug pricing reform endlessly. The Biden White House leaned on the Inflation Reduction Act's Medicare negotiation provisions, which covered a handful of drugs after years of legislative wrangling. Trump's MFN approach, by contrast, has now pulled 26 companies into voluntary agreements covering the vast majority of the branded market, without a single new statute.
The most-favored-nation framework took shape when Trump signed a sweeping executive order on May 12, 2025, directing pharmaceutical companies to charge Americans the same prices paid by patients in other wealthy nations. National Review reported that the order was broader than a similar measure from Trump's first term that courts had blocked, and it directed HHS Secretary RFK Jr. to set price-reduction targets within 30 days.
Trump was blunt about the problem the order aimed to fix. "Our country is the highest drug prices anywhere in the world, by sometimes a factor of five, six, seven, eight times," he said at the signing. "America is going to pay a lot less. So basically, what we're doing is equalizing."
That executive order also directed the FDA to consider prescription drug imports from developed nations beyond Canada, a move that added competitive pressure on companies weighing whether to come to the table voluntarily. The combination of regulatory leverage and the promise of a stable U.S. market appears to have worked. Company after company has signed on.
Meanwhile, the administration has been winning legal battles on other fronts as well, reinforcing the sense that the White House's aggressive posture across policy domains is producing results rather than mere headlines.
The 17th deal, with Regeneron, closed in late April 2026 and offered a preview of the terms the White House would seek from smaller firms. AP News reported that Regeneron agreed to lower prices on all current and future drugs on Medicaid, sell its cholesterol drug Praluent for $225 on TrumpRx, and commit $27 billion in U.S. research, development, and manufacturing investment.
Trump remarked at the time that the pricing victories deserved front-page coverage. "It should be front page news," he said. The mainstream press largely disagreed, burying the story or hedging it with caveats about potential trade-offs.
Some economists have raised questions about whether lower prices could reduce long-term pharmaceutical research spending. Ed Haislmaier of the Heritage Foundation offered a more measured assessment, telling Fox News that "companies are likely calculating that revenue losses from lower prices will be offset by revenue gains from more sales." Ryan Long of the Paragon Health Institute said the goal was "to lower prices for American consumers without sacrificing U.S. leadership in biopharmaceutical innovation that leads to new treatments and cures."
That framing matters. The administration's approach relies on market incentives, broader access driving higher volume, rather than the blunt price caps progressives have long demanded. It is a distinction Democrats will struggle to attack without arguing that Americans should keep paying more.
Drug prices have been a Democratic talking point for decades. Candidates from both parties have promised relief, but the legislative path has been slow, narrow, and politically expensive. The Inflation Reduction Act's Medicare drug negotiation provisions, signed by President Biden, initially covered just ten medications.
Trump's MFN deals now cover nearly 90 percent of the branded drug market. The White House launched TrumpRx.gov to direct patients to lower-cost options from manufacturers who have signed on. And the $150 billion in total domestic manufacturing and research commitments secured across all the deals, a figure Fox News cited, represents an investment pipeline that doubles as an industrial policy.
The political math is uncomfortable for Democrats heading into the 2026 midterms. Their party is already contending with a wave of primary losses as voters punish incumbents seen as out of touch. A Republican president delivering measurable drug-price relief, the steepest annual decline in over 60 years, strips away one of the left's most reliable applause lines.
Trump acknowledged the political dimension with characteristic candor at the Regeneron announcement in April: "We should win the midterms, but it doesn't work that way, unfortunately."
Whether it works that way or not, the numbers are moving. Twenty-six companies. Nearly 90 percent of the branded market. A 3.1 percent annual price decline. Billions pledged for U.S. factories and labs. Hundreds of tons of critical drug ingredients committed to a domestic reserve.
And the administration has shown it can prevail in court when states or opponents try to block its agenda, a track record that gives the MFN framework additional credibility with companies deciding whether to sign.
For years, Washington promised Americans cheaper drugs and delivered committee hearings. This White House delivered deals, and the prices are falling to prove it.