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US President Donald Trump made the announcement that AstraZeneca is the second of 17 major pharmaceutical companies, after Pfizer, to agree to most-favored-nation pricing protocols.
White House - Washington D.C. United States of America | Image Credit: © Orhan Çam - stock.adobe.com
AstraZeneca has agreed to offer drugs at a lower, “most-favored-nation” (MFN) price to patients in the United States through the federal government’s not-yet-live TrumpRx.gov platform, the White House announced on Oct. 10, 2025 (1).
AstraZeneca’s reported deal to lower drug prices in the US stands to make prescriptions more affordable for patients with lower incomes, including those on Medicaid (1). The TrumpRx platform will allow any companies that reach an MFN deal with the White House to sell their drugs directly to consumers at deep discounts, but the website is not expected to be made live until 2026.
Pfizer was the first pharmaceutical company to announce an MFN agreement with the White House, which both sides disclosed on Sept. 30, 2025 (2). That was one day after the end of a 60-day timeframe Trump had put in place for companies to comply with the step-by-step process, provided by his administration, to lower prescription drug prices in the US to the lowest price offered among other developed nations, or the federal government would “deploy every tool in our arsenal to protect American families from continued abusive drug pricing practices” (3).
Aside from AstraZeneca and Pfizer, the other 15 companies to receive letters outlining those plans were AbbVie, Amgen, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Company, EMD Serono, Genentech, Gilead Sciences, GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Co., Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Regeneron, and Sanofi (3).
The deal with the White House was the second major piece of news involving AstraZeneca in as many days. On Oct. 9, 2025, the company said it would be investing a total of $4.5 billion in a new US manufacturing facility, near Charlottesville, Va., with that monetary amount representing a proposed increase of $500 million that will be dedicated to enhanced manufacturing capability supporting a broader range of medicines, including cancer treatments (4). The investment is just a portion of AstraZeneca’s $50 billion overall commitment to US manufacturing and R&D that was first announced in July 2025, part of an industry-wide re-examining of manufacturing operations due to the changing tariff policies of the Trump administration.
1. The White House. Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Announces Second Deal to Bring Most-Favored-Nation Pricing to American Patients. WhiteHouse.gov, Oct. 10, 2025.
2. Lavery, P. Pfizer Reaches First Agreement with White House on MFN Pricing; Who Will Be Next? PharmTech.com, Sept. 30, 2025.
3. Lavery, P. Trump Sends Letters to 17 Leading Pharma Companies Outlining Most-Favored-Nation Drug Pricing Protocol. PharmTech.com, Aug. 1, 2025.
4. Lavery, P. AstraZeneca’s US Expansion Highlights AI, Automation, and Policy Pressure in Pharma Manufacturing. PharmTech.com, Oct. 10, 2025.
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