Trump Strikes Medicaid Drug Price Deals With Nine Pharma Firms

(Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration has struck new drug pricing agreements with nine biotech and pharmaceutical companies including UCB SA, Bridgebio Pharma Inc. and Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.

Every drug "will be at the lowest prices available anywhere in the world," President Donald Trump said Monday at the White House.

The agreements also included Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Astellas Pharma Inc., Alcon AG, BeOne Medicines Ltd., CSL Ltd. and Kyowa Kirin Co.

The president claimed the additions mean 26 companies representing 90% of the domestic pharmaceutical market have signed on to the administration's most-favored nation discounts and that "the other 10% are coming in — they have no choice," he added.

The companies will provide discounts on outpatient drugs to state Medicaid programs so that the prices states pay align with what the companies charge in foreign countries. Participation by state Medicaid programs is optional.

The announcement is the latest installment in a string of splashy White House events with pharmaceutical executives and Trump aimed at spotlighting healthcare affordability ahead of the midterm elections.

The administration starting last year struck so-called most-favored nation drug-pricing deals with 17 large pharmaceutical companies including pharma giants like Pfizer Inc. and Eli Lilly & Co. Those companies agreed to reduce prices for federal health insurance programs and offer their medications on a Trump-branded website in exchange for tariff relief.

The deals do not address costs for the more than 160 million people in the US with employer-sponsored insurance. Companies are facing rising healthcare costs and are passing those costs on to employees with higher monthly premiums and less generous benefits.

Medicaid already gets substantial discounts from manufacturers by law, and patients in the program often don't pay much out of pocket for prescriptions. But researchers affiliated with Harvard Medical School and the Urban Institute estimated that the Trump administration could save money if drugmakers agreed to offer Medicaid prices similar to those they charge abroad.

They said the administration's Medicaid drug pricing pilot could save states more than $8 billion annually if it were applied to 82 high-cost, brand-name drugs in an analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in July.