President Trump's letter to eighteen of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, including AbbVie, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, EMD Serono, Genentech, Gilead, GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Regeneron, and Sanofi, demanding drug price cuts for Americans, sent a jolt through pharma stocks in Europe.
Trump's formal letters to major big pharma, demanding immediate action to reduce U.S. drug prices to Most-Favored-Nation (MFN) levels — i.e., the lowest prices offered in any other developed nation, represent a move by his administration to stop what he calls "global freeloading" on U.S. pharma innovation, as well as for the adminstration to lower costs for all Americans - a campaign pledge he made in 2024.
Here are the key demands Trump made in the letter to drugmakers:
Provide MFN prices to all Medicaid patients.
Pledge not to offer lower prices abroad for new drugs than those offered in the U.S.
Sell drugs directly to consumers at MFN prices, bypassing middlemen.
Raise prices abroad (via trade policy support), but reinvest those gains into lowering prices for Americans
