Officials pledge ‘massive savings’ as companies agree to offer drugs at prices paid in other wealthy countries
Donald Trump and nine major pharmaceutical companies on Friday announced deals that will slash the prices of their medicines for the government’s Medicaid program and for cash payers, in his latest bid to align US costs with those in other wealthy nations.
Bristol Myers Squibb, Gilead Sciences, and Merck and Roche’s US unit Genentech have struck deals. Novartis, Amgen, Boehringer Ingelheim, Sanofi and GSK have also signed on.
Under the deals, each drugmaker will cut prices on most drugs sold to the Medicaid program for low-income people, senior administration officials said, promising “massive savings” on widely used medicines without giving specific figures.
US patients currently pay by far the most for prescription medicines, often nearly three times more than in other developed nations, and Trump has been pressuring drugmakers to lower their prices to what patients pay elsewhere.
