U.S. News
Trump Announces Agreements to Lower U.S. Prescription Drug Prices
By Jake Beardslee · December 22, 2025
President Donald Trump announced Friday that nine major pharmaceutical companies have agreed to lower the cost of prescription drugs in the United States, a move the administration says will bring U.S. prices more in line with those paid in other developed countries.
Under the agreements, drugmakers including Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim, Genentech, Gilead Sciences, GSK, Merck, Novartis and Sanofi will reduce Medicaid drug prices to match what they charge abroad. The companies also agreed to apply so-called “most-favored-nation” pricing to newly launched drugs across all markets, including commercial insurance, cash-pay customers, Medicare and Medicaid.
Drug prices in the U.S. vary widely depending on factors such as market competition and insurance coverage. Most Americans are protected from the full cost of medications through employer-sponsored insurance, private plans or government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. While Medicaid patients already pay only nominal co-payments, lower prices could help ease pressure on state budgets that help fund the program.
Lower prices may also benefit uninsured patients, who typically lack leverage to negotiate discounts. However, even steep reductions could still leave some patients paying hundreds of dollars per month for certain prescriptions.
Administration officials said participating companies will also sell pharmacy-ready medications through the TrumpRx platform, which is set to launch in January and will allow consumers to purchase drugs directly from manufacturers.
Several companies, including Merck, GSK and Bristol Myers Squibb, also agreed to donate significant quantities of active pharmaceutical ingredients to a national reserve. Those ingredients would be used to formulate and distribute critical medications such as antibiotics, rescue inhalers and blood thinners in emergency situations.
Bristol Myers Squibb separately announced it will provide its blood thinner Eliquis free of charge to the Medicaid program. Eliquis is the company’s most prescribed drug and among the most widely used medications within Medicaid.
Other drugmakers, including Pfizer, AstraZeneca, EMD Serono, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, reached similar agreements with the Trump administration earlier this year. While individual terms were not disclosed, the administration has now secured lower drug price commitments from 14 companies after Trump publicly sent letters to executives at 17 firms warning that U.S. brand-name drug prices can be as much as three times higher than those abroad.
Trump said he used the threat of tariffs to pressure companies into compliance, stating that he effectively threatened them with 10% tariffs to get them to “do the right thing.”