President Donald Trump’s announcement Monday of agreements with nine more drugmakers “to lower prescription drug prices for Americans in line with the lowest prices paid by other developed nations” marks a major step in the chief executive’s campaign to ensure “every American gets the lowest prices on prescription medications in the developed world.”

The nine firms signing the Most Favored Nation (MFN) pricing deals were described by a White House Fact Sheet as “mid-sized pharmaceutical companies.” The MFN status mean the nine firms, including Alcon, Astellas Pharma, BeOne Medicines, BridgeBio, CSL, Kyowa Kirin, Sun Pharma, Teva Pharmaceuticals, and UCB, will now charge Americans the same price as they do for overseas customers.

The fact sheet also claimed the new agreements will result in multiple benefits to American consumers:

• “The agreements reduce prices on drugs that treat numerous costly, chronic, and even rare diseases, including hemophilia, Parkinson’s disease, macular degeneration, glaucoma, liver disease, skin conditions, and various forms of cancer. 
• “The agreements will provide every State Medicaid program in the country access to MFN drug prices on products made by the nine companies, resulting in billions of dollars in savings for Americans and continuing President Trump’s historic efforts to strengthen the program for the most vulnerable.
• “The agreements ensure foreign nations can no longer use price controls to freeride on American innovation by guaranteeing MFN prices on all new innovative medicines the nine companies bring to market.
• “Each of these manufacturers has agreed to fundamentally rebalance international drug pricing by providing MFN pricing to American patients.”

In addition, according to the fact sheet, the nine drugmakers committed to invest at least $19.6 billion collectively in U.S. manufacturing in the near term. Also, as part of the MFN agreements, several companies are donating active pharmaceutical ingredients for key products to the Strategic Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Reserve (SAPIR) to reduce reliance on foreign nations and ensure the United States has an adequate supply of such products in the event of an emergency.”

The fact sheet further claimed that Trump’s MFN deals, which now total 26, plus the creation last year of the TrumpRx website in conjunction with related actions by his administration, are “lowering drug prices for the American people,” including “more than $700 million on medicines through TrumpRx” on “some of the most popular and costly medications used to treat obesity and infertility.”

Also, total savings from the Trump MFN deals could approach $600 billion by 2036, according to the White House Council of Economic Advisers, the fact sheet touted.

Consumers picking up prescriptions for the most frequently prescribed medications, however, aren’t likely to see prices drop in the near future as a result of the Trump MFN deals because those agreements are with firms that primarily are associated with high-priced branded medicines and future innovative drugs. For example, Ozempic, a Novo Nordisk patent-protected drug, is used mainly for treating Type 2 diabetes, while Eliquis, a Bristol Myers Squibb drug, is for preventing blood clots and strokes. Patent protection is granted by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and varies in length, generally anywhere from seven to 14 or more years, during which the patent holder has a monopoly and can charge at will.

The most frequently prescribed drugs on the market typically do not have such protection and often are generics, of which there may be several competing versions of the same original drug. Because the market for these primary care prescriptions is so competitive, prices are lower, according to analysis — going back as far as 2016 and from both the FDA and the Government Accountability Office (GAO). As a result, prices for these drugs have actually been steadily headed downward in recent years.

The Washington Stand found prices dropping from 2022 through 2024 (the most recent year with complete data), based on Center for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) data for 10 of the most frequent primary care drugs, all generics covering prescriptions and refills under Medicare Part D. The average price reduction during that three-year period was nearly 22%.

That average figure was boosted by the 48.5% reduction in the cost of Rosuvastatin, a high cholesterol treatment, the 28.9% plunge in the cost of Metoprolol Succinate blood pressure treatment, the 26.9% drop in the cost of Levothyroxine, which is used to treat hypothyroidism, and a 25.3% drop in the cost of Gabapentin, used for treatment of seizures and nerve-related pain. Removing those four, the average for the remaining six dropped to 14.3%.

A significant factor in the price decreases since 2022 is the negotiation between federal officials and Medicare drug providers regarding reducing costs. Those negotiations were authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, originally proposed by Trump’s predecessor in the White House, Joe Biden. Trump continued those conversations after he was elected to a second term in the Oval Office in 2024.

Trump’s MFN and TrumpRx efforts were first announced in January 2026 as part of the president’s “Great Healthcare Plan” that was promised as a comprehensive approach to lowering drug prices, lowering insurance premiums, holding big insurance companies accountable, and maximizing price transparency.

A significant feature of that proposal was described as an end to “sending big insurance companies billions in extra taxpayer-funded subsidy payments and instead send[ing] that money directly to eligible Americans to allow them to buy the health insurance of their choice.”

In a series of stories in 2025, TWS reported how billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded Obamacare premium subsidies actually go straight into the coffers of health insurance providers, which then pass hundreds of millions of dollars to senators and representatives in the form of campaign contributions.