President Donald Trump secured a major victory Friday as AstraZeneca agreed to lower its prescription drug prices for Medicaid—a move that follows a similar deal made by Pfizer and marks a center point in the administration’s push for more affordable medicine.
According to AP, the agreement, made public during a White House Oval Office event, commits AstraZeneca to “most–favored–nation” pricing for Medicaid.
That means the company will match the lowest drug prices offered in other wealthy nations.
Trump celebrated the deal, saying it could lead to US prices being “the lowest price anywhere in the world.”
AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot joined Trump for the announcement. With a wry tone, he later admitted that the negotiations had been intense: the president and his team “really kept me up at night.”
Under the new deal, AstraZeneca will also guarantee the pricing standard for newly launched drugs.
This move follows on the heels of Pfizer’s recent agreement with the administration. Both deals build off an executive order Trump signed in May: drugmakers were given the option to voluntarily reduce prices or face tighter limits on what the government will pay.
BREAKING: Trump just announced that AstraZeneca, the largest drug manufacturer in the UK, will be investing $50 billion in the United States in the next five years.
They will also sell their drugs to Americans at favored nations pricing through “TrumpRX”
AMAZING! pic.twitter.com/g5gv76UWR7
— George (@BehizyTweets) October 10, 2025
Trump Touts AstraZeneca’s $4.5B Deal
Trump took a swipe at AstraZeneca’s initial resistance, quipping, “The tariffs were a big reason he came here.”
The president also highlighted AstraZeneca’s commitment to expand production in the US by announcing a new $4.5 billion manufacturing plant in Virginia, which is just part of a $50 billion investment plan through 2030.
That facility alone is expected to create around 3,600 US jobs.
AstraZeneca, based in Cambridge, UK, produces treatments such as Tagrisso for lung cancer, Lynparza for ovarian cancer, and Calquence for leukemia—together generating more than $7.5 billion in US sales last year.
While the announcements were met with praise by drug-cost advocates, some experts warn that placing all hope on the drugmakers could be risky without stronger US policies to back them up.
Questions remain over how much patients and states will truly benefit, given that Medicaid already secures a “best price” deal and most patients don’t pay full cost out of pocket, CBS News reported.
Trump also introduced a new initiative: a website called TrumpRx.gov, coming in January 2026.
Patients will be able to order medications directly from Roche and AstraZeneca through the site at reduced cash prices.
Originally published on vcpost.com
