By Tami Luhby, Adam Cancryn, Meg Tirrell

(CNN) — President Donald Trump announced on Friday a deal with drugmaker AstraZeneca in his latest effort to lower drug costs through so-called “Most Favored Nation” pricing.

The move comes after the president unveiled last week an agreement with Pfizer to reduce prices on many of its drugs, as Trump demanded in a July letter to pharmaceutical company CEOs.

The arrangement with AstraZeneca, one of Europe’s largest pharmaceutical companies, is similar to the Pfizer deal.

Both have promised to sell drugs to Medicaid and set prices of new medications at “Most Favored Nation” levels, the lowest price made available in peer countries.

Plus, they will participate in the new TrumpRx online platform, which is now live and will become operational in January. The website will direct visitors to drugmakers’ direct-to-consumer channels, where their products will be available at a discount to those willing to pay cash and forgo using insurance.

AstraZeneca said in a press release about the deal that it will allow eligible patients with prescriptions for chronic diseases to purchase drugs directly at a discount of up to 80% off list prices, which is the cost before any rebates or other discounts.

Trump also pointed to AstraZeneca’s promise to spend $50 billion in expanding its manufacturing in the US, which it announced in July. The company on Thursday unveiled a $4.5 billion investment in Virginia to manufacture a range of medicines including cancer treatments.

And like Pfizer, AstraZeneca is getting a three-year reprieve on having certain tariffs levied on its pharmaceutical imports. Trump noted that the reason manufacturers are agreeing to deals is because of his tariff threats.

“For almost everybody that’s here, most of them are here because of tariffs,” Trump said in the Oval Office event.

Both companies said the details of their arrangements were confidential.

Friday’s announcement was first reported by CBS News on X and by MSNBC.

Several industry experts, however, have questioned whether Americans will feel much relief from the Pfizer agreement and whether the company is really making notable concessions. Some have similar views on the AstraZeneca announcement.

“Confidential agreements are not a good way to make public policy,” said Rachel Sachs, a law professor at Washington University, adding that it’s not clear what exactly the drugmakers have agreed to, who will enforce the provisions and who is likely to benefit.

The extent of the savings on AstraZeneca’s drugs also remains to be seen. Trump said AstraZeneca’s drugs offered through the direct-to-consumer TrumpRx platform would include those for asthma and diabetes. A White House fact sheet touted discounts of 96% to 654% for certain inhalers, the latter of which is mathematically impossible.

AstraZeneca, though, already makes its asthma inhalers, including Airsupra and Symbicort, available for $35 a month in the US for certain patients – a move it made under pressure from lawmakers such as independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who opened an investigation into asthma drug pricing in early 2024. The company also says it provides help affording drugs to patients without health insurance or who have insufficient coverage.

What’s more, if the White House is appeased by these deals, then it’s less likely they will take aggressive regulatory or administrative actions, said Spencer Perlman, director of health care policy research at Veda Partners, which advises institutional investors and corporations.

Pfizer and AstraZeneca won’t surrender anything of value with most of the measures, Perlman said. However, agreeing to introduce new drugs at Most Favored Nation pricing could be significant – though it’s hard to assess without more details, he said.

Medicaid already receives hefty discounts from drugmakers, though any additional price reductions could save states and the federal government some money. Enrollees already pay little to nothing for medications. The White House said the provision will result in hundreds of millions of dollars of savings.

Also, while Trump is pushing drug companies to offer their products directly to consumers who are willing to forgo insurance and pay cash, experts question how many patients can afford to do that. For instance, Novo Nordisk announced in August that US patients can now get a month’s supply of Ozempic, the blockbuster diabetes drug, for $499, for those who pay for medications on their own and don’t go through insurance.

Plus, the president has acknowledged that his actions may result in prices rising in other countries, while coming down in America — calling that “fair,” when unveiling the Pfizer deal.

The efforts come as Trump has been pressuring drugmakers for months to lower their prices for US patients. He has long fixated on the fact that Americans pay far more for medications than people in peer countries, particularly in Europe, largely because their governments often determine the cost. Prices are nearly three times as high in the US as they are in comparable countries, according to a Health and Human Services Department report released last year.

Trump tried unsuccessfully to institute “Most Favored Nation” pricing during his first term. He said Friday that one reason he ran for election again was that he wanted to equalize the prices the US pays compared to other developed countries.

The main pharmaceutical industry group praised the Trump administration for focusing on what it called “foreign countries free riding off American innovation,” but said “the administration needs to do more to address unfair practices abroad.”

“Other countries routinely undervalue medicines and limit their citizens’ access to the newest treatments,” Stephen Ubl, CEO of PhRMA, said in a statement. “Most Favored Nation policies that would import these same prices into the U.S. would result in less access to treatments and cures and reduced investment in manufacturing and R&D. It happened in Europe. We don’t want it to happen here.”

However, Ubl noted that “each company makes its own decision on how they set prices for medicines.”

This headline and story have been updated with additional details.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.