U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an event in the Roosevelt Room of the White House December 19, 2025 in Washington, DC. Trump gave a speech about lowering prescription drug prices at the event.
Alex Wong | Getty Images
Several of the largest U.S. and Europe-based drugmakers signed deals Friday with President Donald Trump to voluntarily sell their drugs at a lower price, as his administration works to tie the nation’s drug prices to cheaper ones abroad.
This includes Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb, Amgen, Gilead, GSK, SanofiRoche’s Genentech, private company Boehringer Ingelheim and Novartis. In exchange, the companies agreed to a three-year grace period during which their products will not be subject to Trump’s pharmaceutical-specific tariffs — provided drugmakers invest more in U.S. manufacturing.
Among Friday’s most notable commitments, Bristol Myers Squibb will offer Eliquis, its blockbuster blood thinner and most prescribed product, for free to Medicaid.
These companies make up the majority of the 17 pharmaceutical companies to which Trump sent letters in July, calling on them to lower their prices as part of his “most favored nation” policy. Trump signed an executive order in May to revive the policy, calling for higher prices outside the United States and to “end global free riding.”
“To date, 14 of the 17 largest pharmaceutical companies … have agreed to significantly lower drug prices for … the American people and American patients,” Trump said at an event Friday. “This represents by far the greatest victory for patient affordability in the history of American health care, and every American will benefit.”
Johnson & Johnson, AbbVie and Regeneron are the last of the largest companies that have not signed agreements on drug prices. But Trump stressed that Johnson & Johnson “I’ll be there next week.”
How drug pricing agreements will work
The full terms of the deals were not immediately released, making it difficult to gauge the extent of their impact.
The nine drugmakers agreed to take steps to reduce drug prices in the United States, including selling their existing treatments to Medicaid patients at the lowest “most favored nation” prices, and guaranteeing those prices for new drugs. Trump said the drugmakers also agreed to list their most popular drugs on his upcoming direct-to-consumer website, TrumpRx, which launches in January.
Some companies have also launched new offerings or expanded existing direct-to-consumer offerings for certain medications. For example, Gilead announced in a statement that it will launch a program that will allow patients to access its hepatitis C treatment and cure, Epclusa, at a discounted price.
Sanofi announced that it will offer discounts of nearly 70% on certain drugs intended to treat infections and cardiovascular and diabetic diseases on TrumpRx and other direct-to-consumer platforms.
Merck announced it would offer three diabetes drugs, Januvia, Janumet and Janumet XR, at about a 70% discount to cash-paying patients through a direct-to-patient program. This program will be expanded to the company’s experimental daily cholesterol pill if approved in the United States, according to the company.
“I’m thinking about your goal of making products affordable and accessible to Americans, but also raising prices outside the United States,” Merck CEO Robert Davis said at the news conference. “And we support your actions 100%.”
Meanwhile, Amgen will expand its existing direct-to-patient sales program to include migraine preventative drug Aimovig and autoimmune treatment Amjevita, at monthly prices discounted by 60% and 80%, respectively.
Earlier this year, Trump announced deals with Elie LillyNovo Nordisk, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and EMD Serono to sell certain drugs directly to patients at reduced prices, in exchange for exemptions from scheduled pharmaceutical tariffs and other benefits, such as expedited reviews of new drugs.
Prescription drug prices in the United States are on average nearly three times higher than abroad, according to a 2024 Rand Corp. study. Prices for brand-name drugs were more than four times higher, the report found.
Trump signed an executive order in May to revive the Most Favored Nation policy, calling for higher prices outside the United States and to “end global free riding.”
The trade association PhRMA, which represents many large pharmaceutical companies, said most favored nation pricing is not the best way to reduce drug costs for Americans and instead blamed pharmacy benefit managers for the price disparity.
The United States is the most important market for many drug manufacturers, regardless of their country of origin. Despite being based across the Atlantic, European pharmaceutical companies are heavily exposed to the US market, with half of the continent’s 10 largest companies generating the majority of their sales in the United States.