President Donald Trump held a press conference on Monday where he said that under the Most-Favored-Nation Initiative, the United States will save billions of dollars after nine more companies signed agreements to sell their drugs to state Medicaid programs at discounted prices.
The initial executive order, signed in May 2025, was a deal made with 17 pharmaceutical companies to lower drug costs.
Now, with nine more companies on board Trump said 90% of the domestic market for pharmaceuticals is covered.
Trump said, “These agreements are projected to save Americans more than $600 billion over a very short period of time.”
He noted, “drug prices have gone down and will go down 50, 60, 70, 80%.”
The latest companies to sign agreements include Alcon, Astellas Pharma, BeOne Medicines, BridgeBio, CSL, Kyowa Kirin, Sun Pharma, Teva Pharmaceuticals and UCB.
The companies have also pledged billions in spending to increase drug manufacturing in the United States.
In attendance from the Trump Administration was Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Kennedy described the goal of lowering drug prices and thanked the CEOs and “their vision for their commitment to something other than short-term profits, but a long-term commitment to our country, to patriotic values, and to human health.”
Lutnick focused on the national security and job benefits of the agreements. “We need our drugs made in America, and then that brings jobs and investment in America.”
Pharmaceutical executives at the press conference included Steve Schaefer, president of Kyowa Kirin North America, Julie Schiffman, senior vice president of CSL, and many others.
Schaefer explained his U.S. innovation commitment. He said, “right now, 5% of our drugs that are manufactured in the U.S. are for American patients. In the next two years, over 95% of drugs that are manufactured in the United States will be for American patients.”
“CSL employs nearly 19,000 Americans across 44 states,” Schiffman said, as senior vice president of one of the world’s largest plasma-derived biotechnology companies.
Trump said without his own announcement, these accomplishments won’t get covered, “but that’s why I speak up.”