The Trump administration on Monday announced that it has reached agreements with nine midsized pharmaceutical companies to offer most-favored nation (MFN) prices for prescription drugs to U.S. consumers.
The agreements will provide every state Medicaid program access to MFN drug prices on products made by these companies. Alcon, Astellas Pharma, BeOne Medicines, BridgeBio, CSL, Kyowa Kirin, Sun Pharma, Teva Pharmaceuticals and UCB manufacture drugs that treat such diseases as hemophilia, Parkinson’s disease, macular degeneration, glaucoma, liver disease, skin conditions and various forms of cancer, according to the White House.
“For decades, Americans paid the highest drug prices anywhere in the world by far,” Trump said at a press conference with executives from the drug companies standing behind him, according to Time magazine. “We now pay the lowest price paid by other countries anywhere in the world.”
These agreements bring the total number of pharmaceutical manufacturers with MFN deals to 26, covering nearly 90% of the branded drug market. The nine pharmaceutical manufacturers also committed to invest at least $19.6 billion collectively in U.S. manufacturing in the near term. Additionally, as part of the MFN agreements, several companies are donating active pharmaceutical ingredients for key products to the Strategic Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Reserve to reduce reliance on foreign nations and ensure the United States has an adequate supply of such products in an emergency.
Reducing prescription drug prices has been a priority of Trump’s second term. In May 2025, the president signed an executive order directing his administration to take steps to bring U.S. drug prices in line with those paid in comparable countries. Last September, he announced an agreement with Prizer to provide most-favored-nation pricing for Medicaid, and 13 other manufacturers agreed to deals by the end of 2025.
The Council of Economic Advisers estimates the total savings from these MFN deals to reach $600 billion over the next decade. However, some health policy experts said the savings will be limited, because only Medicaid is affected.
“Long-term savings are likely illusory,” Thomas Hwang, an assistant professor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, told Time. “That’s because evidence suggests that after most-favored-nation deals, companies often raise prices in other countries so that the prices that the U.S. compares its prices to will be higher.”
Because the agreements are voluntary, some critics say they could be terminated under a new administration. Trump’s requests for Congress to enact legislation to make MFN pricing mandatory has run into headwinds from pharmaceutical lobbyists and some lawmakers.
“Now we need Congress to expand these agreements and codify them into permanent law,” Trump said, according to Politico. “We want to make it permanent.”