President Donald Trump on Friday announced that a second pharmaceutical giant, AstraZeneca, has agreed to lower U.S. drug prices.

The United Kingdom-based drugmaker will lower prices for drugs sold to Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for low-income families. The company also will sell medications via a new website, TrumpRx, which will facilitate direct-to-consumer sales of drugs next year, Trump said.

On Sept. 30, Trump announced a similar "most favored nation" agreement with Pfizer to sell medications through Medicaid at lower prices.

During last week's announcement, Trump said Pfizer medications introduced to the U.S. market will be sold at prices that are no greater than those of comparable countries. The agreement follows an executive order Trump signed in March that instituted a most-favored nation policy for drug pricing.

Trump has pressured drugmakers to return drug manufacturing to the United States under the threat of 100% tariff on brand name drugs imported to the United States. Pharmaceutical companies that have already broken ground on building a U.S. manufacturing plant will be exempt from the tariffs.

On Thursday, Astrazeneca held a groundbreaking ceremony for a $4.5 billion drug manufacturing facility in Charlottesville, Virginia. The factory, which will make ingredients for weight loss, blood pressure, cholesterol and cancer medications, will create 600 jobs, the company said.

Other drugmakers such as Eli Lilly and Roche have announced new major domestic drug manufacturing facilities in the U.S.

Joined by AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot during Friday's announcement, Trump said that tariffs influenced the drugmaker's decision to expand its U.S. manufacturing.

"I'm not sure Pascal would like to say, but behind the scenes, he did say tariffs were a big reason he came here," Trump said.

In addition to discounting drugs for Medicaid, AstraZeneca will lower prices for drugs sold directly to consumers through the TrumpRx website. AstraZeneca drugs such as inhalers to treat lung disease and diabetes medications will be discounted on the new website, said Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator.

Oz said the AstraZeneca drug pricing deal and Virginia factory groundbreaking sends "a signal for all countries around the world to stop freeloading off American innovation."

During his cabinet meeting on Thursday, Sept. 9, Trump said his administration has reached a deal with other unnamed drug companies on most favored nation pricing. Other nations have historically paid lower list prices on new brand name drugs than the United States.

"We were subsidizing the entire world," Trump said during his cabinet meeting. "The entire world pays a fraction of what the United States has been paying."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump announces deal with pharma giant AstraZeneca to lower drug prices

Reporting by Ken Alltucker, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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