AstraZeneca agrees to lower drug prices for Medicaid under Trump
administration deal
[October 11, 2025]
By WILL WEISSERT
WASHINGTON (AP) — AstraZeneca on Friday became the second major
pharmaceutical manufacturer to announce it had agreed to lower the cost
of prescription drugs for Medicaid under a deal struck with the Trump
administration that avoided its threats of steep tariffs.
President Donald Trump made the announcement in the Oval Office with
AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot, who said that during tough negotiations
to reach a deal, Trump and his team of officials had “really kept me up
at night.”
Under the agreement, AstraZeneca will charge most-favored-nation pricing
to Medicaid, while guaranteeing such pricing on newly launched drugs,
Trump said. That involves matching the lowest price offered in other
developed nations.
“For many years, Americans have paid the highest prices in the world for
prescription drugs, by far,” Trump said, adding that the new deal may
cut prices to “the lowest price anywhere in the world. That’s what we
get.”
AstraZeneca's deal follows a similar agreement Pfizer announced late
last month. Advocates have generally praised the administration’s
efforts to cut drug prices, though some have expressed concerns that too
much onus is being placed on the manufacturers to lower costs without
implementing U.S. policy safeguards to ensure such outcomes.
Both agreements, however, build on an executive order Trump signed in
May that set a deadline for drugmakers to electively lower prices or
face new limits on what the government will pay. Trump had suggested
that a series of deals with drug companies would subsequently be coming.
“The tariffs were a big reason he came here,” Trump said of Soriot.
Cambridge, United Kingdom-based AstraZeneca makes a range of cancer
treatments. Its products include the lung cancer drug Tagrisso; Lynparza,
an oral treatment for ovarian cancer, and Calquence, which treats
chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
Those drugs brought in a total of more than $7.5 billion in U.S. sales
last year.
AstraZeneca announced Thursday that it would spend $4.5 billion on a new
manufacturing plant near Charlottesville, Virginia, and its Republican
governor, Glenn Youngkin, spoke during Friday's Oval Office announcement
to cheer groundbreaking on the new facility.
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AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot speaks in the Oval Office of the White
House during an event with President Donald Trump, Friday, Oct. 10,
2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
 The drugmaker said that project was
the centerpiece of $50 billion in investments the company plans to
make in the U.S. by 2030.
AstraZeneca said it plans to reach $80 billion in total revenue by
then, half of which will be generated in the United States.
Trump predicted the investment’s could lead to 3,600 jobs
domestically “just to begin with.”
One of the AstraZeneca drugs was already subject to price reductions
due to a Medicare negotiating strategy implemented under President
Biden. Still, Trump insisted that Democrats shouldn't “get credit”
and suggested the party's key leaders may try.
The announcements came months after AstraZeneca said it was
scrapping plans to expand a vaccine manufacturing plant in its home
country. The company blamed several factors, including reduced
government financial support.
The Trump administration has put up a landing page for its new
website, TrumpRX.gov, where people will be able to buy drugs
directly from manufacturers, according to officials. Both Pfizer and
AstraZeneca will offer medications through the site, according to
the administration.
The website’s landing page features two very large pictures of Trump
and a promise that the site is “Coming Soon” in January 2026.
It says at the bottom of the page that the site was “Designed in DC
by The National Design Studio,” the new government website design
hub that Trump created by executive order in August, which is being
led by Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia.
___
Associated Press writers Tom Murphy and Michelle L. Price
contributed to this report.
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