President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he reached a deal with pharmaceutical company Pfizer to lower drug prices for Medicaid patients.
Under the agreement, each state’s Medicaid program will have access to Pfizer products offered at the lowest paid price by other countries.
According to the White House, the agreement will ensure that foreign countries can “no longer use price controls to freeride on American innovation.”
It will require Pfizer to offer medications “at a deep discount off the list price” when selling directly to American patients, the White House said.
Pfizer will be selling medications directly to American consumers on a new website called “TrumpRx.” It will be operated by the federal government.
“As you know, the United States is paying sometimes ten times more than other countries for drugs, and a lot of excuses were made for that for many years,” Trump said in a press conference Tuesday in the Oval Office.
Trump was joined by Vice President JD Vance, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla.
The administration shared online that under the deal, some drugs could see up to an 80% discount.
Trump celebrated the deal, complimenting Bourla for offering some of Pfizer’s “most popular current medications” at a heavily discounted price. Pfizer also will be investing $70 billion for research and development in the U.S., Trump said.
“The United States is done subsidizing the health care of the rest of the world,” he said. “it’s a big thing. This is, I can’t tell you how big this is.”
Kennedy, Oz and Lutnick all celebrated the deal and the president in brief remarks in the Oval Office.
Bourla said it was an honor to be with Trump to announce the “landmark agreement” on what he called a “historic day.”
Bourla noted that Trump’s tariff agenda would have impacted international development and manufacturing of medications for his company, but the deal announced Tuesday, with Pfizer’s investment to produce within the U.S., and allowed “clarity.”
“For years, other rich nations refused to pay the first serve for the medical innovation and as a result, Americans had to assume his proportional cost on their shoulders,” Boula said. “This situation we all knew is not sustainable. This situation is a situation that many wanted to change, but no one could. This is changing today.”
The agreement Tuesday follows an Executive Order from July in which Trump gave drugmakers until Sept. 29 to commit to the “Most Favored Nation” pricing plan and lower prescription prices.
The order has called on drug manufacturers to provide Medicaid patients with preferential pricing and to not give international consumers better prices.
Some companies, like Pfizer, seem to have already complied with the order.
The deal also comes just before the Oct. 1 deadline for Trump’s new 100% tariff on “any branded or patented” pharmaceutical product. The tariff would hit pharmaceutical companies that are not manufacturing products in the United States.