Aug 26 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is planning to announce a new round of drug-pricing agreements with midsize biotech companies on Monday, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The companies will agree to provide discounts on outpatient drugs to state Medicaid programs such that the prices states pay align with what the companies charge in foreign countries, according to the report.
The report did not mention which drugmakers would be agreeing to the price reductions. Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
To date, the Trump administration has reached voluntary agreements with 17 pharmaceutical companies to slash medicine prices for the government’s Medicaid program and for cash payers, including Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Amgen.
U.S. patients currently pay by far the most for prescription medicines, often nearly three times more than other developed nations. Trump has been pressuring drugmakers to lower their prices to what patients pay elsewhere.
As part of the voluntary agreements, Trump has also secured price reductions for GLP-1 drugs, expanding Medicare coverage for obesity treatments.
In May, the administration said the pricing deals are expected to generate $64.3 billion in federal and state savings in the next 10 years.
(Reporting by Gargi Gupta and Christy Santhosh in Bengaluru, Editing by Franklin Paul and Jonathan Ananda)
