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AstraZeneca has agreed to lower costs of some medicines in exchange for a three-year reprieve from US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
As part of the deal the pharmaceutical company will cut drug costs for Americans on Medicaid, the government-backed insurance programme for low-income people, and reduce the prices of some recently launched drugs.
It will also sell more of its medicines directly to patients on its own site and the recently launched TrumpRx. The agreement requires AstraZeneca to repatriate to the US some profits it earns abroad if foreign drug prices increase as a result of the deal.
Trump has said he intends to impose 100 per cent tariffs on branded medicines imported into the US from places other than the EU, which has a 15 per cent rate.
The deal struck by the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker, which had pledged in July to invest $50bn in US manufacturing by 2030, is similar to the unprecedented agreement Pfizer agreed last month with the president.
Speaking at the White House late on Friday, AstraZeneca chief executive Pascal Soriot applauded the deal as “a big win” for US patients.
Trump said: “I’m not sure Pascal would like to say it, but behind the scenes, he would say tariffs were a big reason he came here.”
AstraZeneca’s and Pfizer’s deals with the White House have given shareholders some optimism about the future of US drug policy. AstraZeneca’s shares were little changed on Friday, but the company’s stock jumped last week after Pfizer’s deal. AstraZeneca’s shares are up 29 per cent this year.
AstraZeneca is the first foreign drugmaker to make a deal with the Trump administration, beating Eli Lilly, which was widely expected to forge the second agreement after Pfizer.
Soriot has been keen to stress that the pharmaceutical group is a “very American company”, and recently announced plans for the company to list directly in New York, as well as in London.
AstraZeneca was one of 17 companies that faced demands from Trump to make binding commitments to lower US drug prices.
