Twenty-six pharmaceutical manufacturers now hold most-favored-nation pricing agreements with the federal government, a group whose products cover 89 percent of the U.S. branded drug market, according to a White House fact sheet published August 31. The latest round added nine companies — Alcon, Astellas Pharma, BeOne Medicines, BridgeBio, CSL, Kyowa Kirin, Sun Pharma, Teva Pharmaceuticals and UCB — to a roster that already included most of the industry’s largest names. The fact sheet names one program the new discounts reach: every state Medicaid program in the country. Medicare, the program that covers most Americans 65 and older, is not mentioned anywhere in the release.
Nine Companies Join a Growing Most-Favored-Nation Roster
The nine additions are mid-sized manufacturers rather than the largest household names, the fact sheet says, and their products treat a range of costly and chronic conditions, including hemophilia, Parkinson’s disease, macular degeneration, glaucoma, liver disease, skin conditions and several forms of cancer. Their addition brings the full most-favored-nation list to 26 manufacturers, a roster that also includes Pfizer, AstraZeneca, EMD Serono, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim, Genentech, Gilead Sciences, GSK, Merck, Novartis, Sanofi, Johnson & Johnson, AbbVie and Regeneron.
Each of the nine companies agreed to extend most-favored-nation pricing not only to its current products but to any new medicine it brings to market going forward, according to the White House fact sheet announcing the deal. The term refers to matching the lowest price other developed nations pay for the same medicine, a benchmark the fact sheet frames as preventing foreign governments from keeping their own drug costs down while Americans pay more for the identical product. The structure follows the pattern set by earlier rounds, which trace back to an executive order President Trump signed in May 2025 directing the administration to pursue most-favored-nation pricing with drug manufacturers, followed by letters sent that July to 17 of the industry’s largest companies outlining the terms they would need to accept.
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The Fact Sheet Names Medicaid, Not Medicare
The document is specific about which program the new prices reach. “The agreements will provide every State Medicaid program in the country access to MFN drug prices on products made by the nine companies,” the fact sheet states, describing the change as part of an effort to strengthen Medicaid “for the most vulnerable.” No sentence in the release extends that access to Medicare, the federal program covering most Americans 65 and older and younger people with certain disabilities, or to private commercial insurance plans.
That distinction has a real effect on who sees the savings. A Medicare beneficiary who also qualifies for Medicaid, sometimes called a dual-eligible beneficiary, could see the new pricing reach the portion of prescription costs billed through Medicaid. A retiree who relies solely on Medicare Part D for drug coverage has no announced access to this particular set of discounts. The fact sheet does not say the pricing will later extend to Medicare, and it does not say it will not; it simply does not raise the question, which is itself the detail worth noting for anyone assuming the two programs move together.
The gap is not a drafting oversight specific to this release. Earlier White House fact sheets describing the first and second rounds of most-favored-nation deals, in September and December 2025, also described the pricing reaching Medicaid and, separately, the general public through the TrumpRx discount site, without naming Medicare Part D drug coverage as a channel for the negotiated prices.
What the New Agreements Actually Cover
Beyond the headline discount, the fact sheet lists specific drug categories affected by the nine new deals: treatments for hemophilia, Parkinson’s disease, macular degeneration, glaucoma, liver disease, skin conditions and various cancers. Each manufacturer also agreed to apply most-favored-nation pricing to any new innovative medicine it launches in the future, a provision the administration frames as preventing other countries from using price controls to, in the fact sheet’s words, “freeride on American innovation.”
The Council of Economic Advisers estimates total savings from the full run of most-favored-nation deals — covering all 26 manufacturers, not just the nine announced August 31 — at $600 billion over the next decade, the fact sheet says, though it does not break out how much of that projected figure would flow through Medicaid specifically versus other channels, such as the separate TrumpRx direct-to-consumer discount program the administration launched earlier in 2026. Households that pay for prescriptions through Medicaid, rather than Medicare or private coverage, are the ones the fact sheet identifies as the direct beneficiaries of this particular expansion.
Manufacturing Investment and a New Drug Reserve
Beyond pricing, the nine manufacturers committed to invest at least $19.6 billion collectively in U.S. manufacturing in the near term, according to the fact sheet. Several are also donating raw pharmaceutical ingredients to the Strategic Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Reserve, a stockpile intended to reduce dependence on foreign suppliers for medicines used to treat common infections and conditions. UCB pledged 163 tons of the anticonvulsant levetiracetam; Sun Pharma pledged 71.4 tons of the antibiotic clindamycin and 6.75 tons of doxycycline; Teva pledged 45 metric tons of the antibiotic metronidazole and 4.8 tons of the blood-pressure drug amlodipine; and Astellas pledged 25 kilograms of the transplant drug tacrolimus.
Those reserve commitments sit alongside the pricing changes but are a separate piece of the agreements — they address drug supply during shortages or emergencies rather than what a Medicaid enrollee or any other patient pays at the pharmacy counter. The fact sheet treats the manufacturing and reserve pledges as part of the same package of concessions the nine companies made in exchange for continued access to the U.S. market on the administration’s terms.
Two Years of Deals Since the First Executive Order
The nine additions are the latest step in a buildout that started with a May 12, 2025 executive order directing the administration to pursue most-favored-nation pricing, according to the fact sheet. The first agreement, with Pfizer, followed on September 30, 2025. A second round added nine more manufacturers on December 19, 2025. The administration launched TrumpRx.gov on February 5, 2026, giving consumers direct access to some of the negotiated prices, separately from the Medicaid-specific access described in the August 31 release.
As of August 31, 2026, the date the fact sheet was published, the administration counts agreements with 26 manufacturers in total, including Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Merck, Johnson & Johnson and the nine companies named in this latest release. The document does not list a target date for extending similar pricing to Medicare or to private insurance — the same fact sheet that announced the nine additions is, for now, the only official word on what the expansion actually covers.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by The Financial Wire editorial team.
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David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
