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President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that his administration has struck a deal with pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to lower prices on a wide range of its prescription drugs for Medicaid patients — a move he described as a “major breakthrough” in the fight to reduce health care costs.
Under the agreement, Pfizer will voluntarily offer discounts averaging 50% — and as high as 85% — on many of its popular primary care and specialty medicines. The company will sell the lower-priced drugs directly to consumers through a new government-operated website called TrumpRx, though the White House provided few details about how the online platform will function or when it will launch.
“This is a really big announcement,” Trump said during remarks from the White House. “This is something that most people said was not doable.”
The deal also gives Pfizer a three-year exemption from Trump’s planned 100% tariffs on foreign-made pharmaceuticals, which are set to take effect Wednesday. In exchange, Pfizer pledged to expand domestic manufacturing and invest $70 billion in U.S.-based research and development over the next several years.
Major price cuts across Pfizer’s portfolio
Pfizer said the reduced prices will apply to “a large majority” of its widely used medications. Among the steepest discounts:
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Duavee, a menopause treatment, will drop 85% to $30.
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Tobias, for overactive bladder, will also fall 85% to $42.
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Eucrisa, a skin ointment, will see an 80% cut to $162.
The new prices are expected to take effect “in the near future,” said Chris Klomp, deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Trump said all future Pfizer drugs introduced in the United States will be sold at similar reduced prices. He hinted that additional agreements with other drugmakers could follow, though no companies were named.
Skepticism from health policy experts
Health policy analysts expressed doubts that the deal would deliver meaningful savings for most Americans.
“The deal only applies to one company and one program,” said Drew Altman, president and CEO of KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research group. “Most Americans buy drugs through their insurance plan, so that would mainly help the uninsured.”
Stacie Dusetzina, a health policy professor at Vanderbilt University, said direct-to-consumer sales often mean patients must pay out of pocket rather than through insurance.
“Direct sales aren’t going to help the average person achieve lower costs,” Dusetzina said. “These announcements serve as good PR for the drug companies but are more of a gimmick that only help a very small number of people.”
She added that the Trump administration’s broader policy — including the new 100% tariff on imported drugs — could ultimately raise costs for consumers.
“This will raise prices for consumers, not lower them,” she said.
Context: a push for ‘most favored nation’ pricing
Trump’s deal with Pfizer represents the first major agreement under his administration’s “most favored nation” model for prescription drugs, which aims to tie U.S. prices to those charged in other wealthy countries.
The initiative stems from an executive order Trump signed in May directing federal officials to negotiate or pressure drug companies into lowering domestic prices. Pfizer’s agreement is seen as a test case for the broader program.
Prescription drug prices in the U.S. remain among the highest in the world, accounting for about 10% of all health care spending. A 2022 survey by KFF found that three in four American adults say medication costs are unaffordable.
Pfizer, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the country, produces widely used medicines including the blood thinner Eliquis, the cancer drug Ibrance, and the COVID-19 vaccine.
While the White House hailed the agreement as a landmark win for consumers, experts said its actual impact would depend on how the TrumpRx platform is structured — and who is eligible to use it.
“If the administration wants to make a real difference,” Altman said, “they’ll need to move beyond one-off deals and tackle the system as a whole.”
