Trump Adds Nine More Drugmakers to His Most-Favored-Nation Pricing Deals and Asks Congress to Write Them Into Law — and His Health Secretary Says the President Called Him and Dr. Oz "Every Hour of the Day" and Made Clear Their Jobs Depended on It
On Monday, August 31, 2026, President Trump announced from the White House that nine more pharmaceutical manufacturers — Alcon, Astellas Pharma, BeOne Medicines, BridgeBio, CSL, Kyowa Kirin, Sun Pharma, Teva Pharmaceuticals and UCB — had agreed to "most-favored-nation" pricing, under which state Medicaid programs pay the lowest price the manufacturer charges in a comparable wealthy country. That brings the running total to 26 companies, which the White House says covers roughly 89 to 90 percent of the branded drug market, and which the administration projects will save Americans more than $600 billion over a decade. The announcement was staged nine weeks before the midterms, into an affordability argument Democrats have been running against Republicans all year. Trump used it to press Congress: he said the company-by-company deals should be codified in statute so a future president cannot simply let them lapse. The most revealing moment came from inside his own cabinet. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., standing beside him, described how the deals got done — Trump calling him and CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz "every hour of the day" and making clear their jobs depended on delivering. Trump's answer, from the same event, was that he had not wanted to follow through: "I didn't want to fire a Kennedy. I wasn't going to do that." Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick tied the agreements to onshoring pharmaceutical production. The persistent criticism of the program is that the terms are not public. Democrats on the Finance, Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce committees have spent 2026 demanding the texts of the deals — Sen. Ron Wyden and 18 Senate Democrats introduced a Drug Deal Disclosure Act in April — and a Public Citizen analysis found that all 16 companies from the program's earlier rounds raised list prices on 272 products in the first months of 2026. No congressional reaction specific to the August 31 announcement had been recorded as of September 1; the Senate stood adjourned until September 14.
“These agreements are projected to save Americans more than $600 billion over a very short period of time.”