Sept 18 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump plans to announce on Friday that the administration’s Medicaid most-favored-nation drug pricing model will cover all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, a White House official said.
The US pays more for prescription drugs than any other country, often nearly three times as much as other developed nations. Trump has repeatedly said he wants to narrow this gap.
His administration signed deals with 17 of the largest global drugmakers, including Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, starting last year.
The companies agreed to offer lower prices, comparable to what is paid in other developed countries — referred to as “most-favored-nation” pricing.
Medicaid, funded jointly by state and federal governments, already draws steep discounts from drugmakers, mandated by existing law. Most people covered by the health program for low-income Americans pay little out of pocket for prescriptions.
Last month, the administration announced a new round of drug-pricing agreements with international pharmaceutical companies and some smaller biotechs.
Semafor reported the development earlier in the day.
(Reporting by Anusha Shah and Sriparna Roy in Bengaluru, and Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Toby Chopra, Joyjeet Das and Chizu Nomiyama)
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