A ninth round of drug-price agreements between the Trump administration and pharmaceutical manufacturers brought the tally of companies in the most-favored-nation pricing program to twenty-six, the White House said in a fact sheet published August 31, 2026. The agreements commit each company to align certain U.S. prices with the lower prices the same drugs fetch in other wealthy countries, a standard the administration calls most-favored-nation pricing. Administration officials say the change could eventually reach patients covered by Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance, though the savings have not yet shown up at any pharmacy counter. For older Americans managing chronic conditions on fixed incomes, the announcement extends a multi-year campaign to close the gap between what the United States and other developed nations pay for the same medicines.
Nine More Manufacturers Join the Most-Favored-Nation Roster
The nine newest signers, according to the White House fact sheet, are Alcon, Astellas Pharma, BeOne Medicines, BridgeBio, CSL, Kyowa Kirin, Sun Pharma, Teva Pharmaceuticals and UCB, a group the administration describes as mid-sized pharmaceutical companies. Combined with the seventeen manufacturers that had already signed on, including Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Merck and Johnson & Johnson, the total reaches twenty-six companies covering an estimated 89 percent of the branded drug market.
The drugs affected treat conditions common among older patients, among them hemophilia, Parkinson’s disease, macular degeneration, glaucoma, liver disease and several forms of cancer. Each agreement also extends most-favored-nation pricing to every state Medicaid program, which the fact sheet frames as protection for the program’s most vulnerable enrollees rather than a benefit limited to people with private coverage. Older patients managing several of these conditions at once are among those most likely to notice any eventual list-price movement, since many of the affected drugs currently carry price tags in the thousands of dollars per month.
Free retirement updates: Want plain-English help keeping more of your money in retirement? The free Retirement Shield newsletter covers the benefits, deadlines, and money mistakes that cost retirees, a couple times a week. Subscribe free.
How a 'Most-Favored-Nation' Price Is Supposed to Work
Most-favored-nation pricing ties a drug’s U.S. list price to the lowest price the same manufacturer charges for it in a comparable developed country, rather than allowing the U.S. price to float on its own the way it traditionally has. The administration traces the approach to a May 2025 executive order and a July 2025 round of letters sent to seventeen major manufacturers; the fact sheet says every one of those seventeen companies has since signed a deal. The nine added in August are smaller manufacturers than that original group, and the White House says signing gives them relief from tariffs and from newer Medicare drug-pricing rules, an incentive layered on top of the pricing commitment itself.
Where the Newest Nine Fit in a Two-Year Timeline
The fact sheet lists the program’s milestones in order: the first most-favored-nation deal, with Pfizer, on September 30, 2025; a trade agreement with the United Kingdom in December that raised the net price of new drugs sold there by 25 percent; a batch of nine more manufacturers on December 19, 2025; the launch of TrumpRx.gov on February 5, 2026; and now this second batch of nine, completed August 31, 2026. Additional single deals, including one with Regeneron in April 2026, filled in the gap between those larger batches, bringing the pre-August total to seventeen companies before this month’s nine pushed it to twenty-six.
The Savings Are Not Yet at the Pharmacy Counter
None of the nine deals announced in August has yet produced a lower price at a retail pharmacy counter. The agreements are structured mainly as Medicaid price concessions and commitments to launch future drugs in the U.S. at the most-favored-nation benchmark, and the gap between an announced deal and a shelf-price change has run months in earlier rounds. The one channel where the administration says money has already changed hands is TrumpRx.gov, the discount portal launched in February 2026, which the fact sheet credits with more than $700 million in savings on a separate, already-negotiated list of drugs, plus a $50-a-month GLP-1 program the fact sheet says saved roughly 500,000 seniors a combined $216 million in its first two months. Neither total includes the nine companies added this week.
A Pledge to Rebuild Domestic Drug Manufacturing
Beyond pricing, the nine manufacturers committed to at least $19.6 billion in combined U.S. manufacturing investment, the fact sheet said, and several agreed to donate active pharmaceutical ingredients to the government’s Strategic Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Reserve. UCB pledged 163 tons of the anti-seizure drug 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 anti-rejection drug tacrolimus. The administration says the goal is to reduce reliance on foreign suppliers for medicines used widely in hospitals and long-term care, where many older patients receive treatment.
A Decade-Long Number That Is Still a Projection
The administration’s Council of Economic Advisers estimates the full run of most-favored-nation deals could save $600 billion over the next decade once fully phased in, according to the fact sheet. That figure covers the cumulative twenty-six-company program, not the nine added on August 31 alone, and it remains a forward-looking estimate rather than money already banked. No date in the fact sheet ties that $600 billion figure to a specific year of savings, leaving the size and timing of any eventual pharmacy-counter effect unresolved. The fact sheet traces the series back to a September 2025 agreement with Pfizer, the first of the deals, and describes each subsequent round, including this one, as adding manufacturers to that same pricing structure rather than changing how it works.
The Drug-Cost Help Already on the Books
Separately, prescription costs remain one of the largest gaps in many older households’ budgets regardless of any single manufacturer deal. Extra Help, state pharmaceutical assistance programs, and Medicare Savings Programs each lower drug and premium costs for people who qualify, yet all three require a separate application and are not activated automatically. Because no agency sends a notice inviting enrollment, many eligible households never file and the assistance goes unclaimed.
The Benefits Checklist runs 69 pages across eleven programs, with the 2026 income cutoffs and the state-by-state phone numbers, and a printable tracker comes with the download.
Open The Benefits Checklist for the full list and the state-by-state phone numbers.
Portions of this article were drafted with AI assistance and reviewed before it went live.
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.
