Business
Trump, Pfizer agree to lower U.S. drug prices, exempt company from pharma tariffs
U.S. President Donald Trump announces a deal with Pfizer to lower Medicaid drug prices in the Oval Office of the White House on Sept. 30, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Win McNamee | Getty Images
President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced an agreement with Pfizer to voluntarily sell its medications for less, as his administration pushes to link U.S. drug prices to cheaper ones abroad.
Pfizer has agreed to take measures to reduce U.S. drug prices, including selling its existing drugs to Medicaid patients at the lowest price offered in other developed nations, or what Trump calls the most-favored-nation price, according to the president. Pfizer will also guarantee the same “most-favored-nation” pricing on its new drugs for Medicare, Medicaid and commercial payers.
As part of the deal, Pfizer has also agreed to a three-year grace period during which the company’s products won’t face pharmaceutical-specific tariffs – as long as the drugmaker further invests in U.S. manufacturing. The company plans to invest $70 billion to reshore domestic drug manufacturing and research facilities.
Shares of Pfizer rose more than 4% on Tuesday after the announcement.
“Pfizer has agreed to provide some of the most popular current medications to our consumers at heavily discounted prices anywhere between 50% and even 100%,” Trump said, adding that those drugs will be available for direct purchase at a discount online on a website the administration is calling TrumpRx.gov.
Trump said he’s working with other drugmakers to secure similar agreements over the next week, adding that Pfizer is the first.
“If we don’t make a deal, we’re going to tariff them,” he said of the other companies’ drugs.
The White House confirmed with CNBC’s Eamon Javers that Eli Lilly is in negotiations with Trump for the next drug pricing deal, without providing further details on how far along talks are.
The deal comes as Pfizer and 16 other drugmakers face Trump’s Monday deadline to take steps to lower drug prices, as outlined in letters from the president. Trump in May signed an executive order reviving a controversial plan, the “most favored nation” policy, that aims to tie the prices of some medicines in the U.S. to the significantly lower ones abroad.
During the press conference, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said the company satisfied all four of the requests Trump outlined in his letter. Among the other steps is pursuing tougher price negotiations abroad and adopting models that sell its medicines directly to consumers or businesses.
“The big winner clearly will be the American patients, there is no doubt,” Bourla said. “They are the ones that will see a significant impact on their ability to buy medicines.” But he said “American innovation and and the American economy” will also be “winners” with the agreement.
Pfizer’s discounted drugs
Pfizer said it will offer a large share of its primacy care treatments and certain specialty branded drugs at discounts of 50% on average and up to 85%, according to a release from the company.
In a separate statement Tuesday, Pfizer said more than 100 million patients are impacted by diseases those medicines treat, such as migraines, rheumatoid arthritis, menopause and atopic dermatitis.
The company provided examples of discounted drugs under TrumpRx.gov. Duavee, a treatment for certain menopause symptoms, will be available for as little as $30 on the site, which is an 85% discount to its current price.
Patients will also be able to pay as low as $162 – an 80% reduction to the current price – for prescription ointment Eucrisa, which is used to treat mild-to-moderate eczema. Tovias, a medication for overactive bladder, will also be available on TrumpRx.gov for as little as $42, which is a 85% discount to the current price.
Pfizer said it also plans to offer products such as Abrilada for autoimmune diseases at a 60% discount, Xeljanz for rheumatoid arthritis at a 40% discount and the migraine drug Zazvpret at 50% discount.
Those drugs don’t appear to be significant revenue drivers for Pfizer. The company’s quarterly and full-year earnings reports only include product-specific revenue for Xeljanz, which generated $349 million in worldwide sales in 2024. Sales of the drug fell 29% operationally from 2023, primarily due to lower demand globally as well as lower net prices in the U.S.
The deal comes as drugmakers brace for Trump’s planned tariffs on pharmaceuticals imported into the country. Trump said in a Truth Social post Thursday that the U.S. will impose a 100% tariff on “any branded or patented Pharmaceutical Product” entering the country from Oct. 1.
The measure will not apply to companies building drug manufacturing plants in the U.S., Trump said. He added that the exemption covers projects where construction has started, including sites that have broken ground or are under construction.
In a note on Tuesday, BMO Capital Markets analyst Evan Seigerman said the deal is positive for Pfizer’s stock and the broader pharmaceutical sector, as it “adds certainty and shifts POTUS policies potentially away from Pharma tariffs.”
“Today’s deal seems to set a path for other pharmaceutical players to follow, allowing for headline pricing concessions and a Trump ‘win’ without more punitive implementation” of the most favored nation policy or tariffs, he added.
1729471601-0/image-(8)1729471601-0-640x480.webp "Pakistan’s crisis differs from world | The Express Tribune")
Business
Stock Market Live Updates: Sensex, Nifty Hit Record Highs; Bank Nifty Climbs 60,000 For The First Time
Stock Market News Live Updates: Indian equity benchmarks opened with a strong gap-up on Monday, December 1, touching fresh record highs, buoyed by a sharp acceleration in Q2FY26 GDP growth to a six-quarter peak of 8.2%. Positive cues from Asian markets further lifted investor sentiment.
The BSE Sensex was trading at 85,994, up 288 points or 0.34%, after touching an all-time high of 86,159 in early deals. The Nifty 50 stood at 26,290, higher by 87 points or 0.33%, after scaling a record intraday high of 26,325.8.
Broader markets also saw gains, with the Midcap index rising 0.27% and the Smallcap index advancing 0.52%.
On the sectoral front, the Nifty Bank hit a historic milestone by crossing the 60,000 mark for the first time, gaining 0.4% to touch a fresh peak of 60,114.05.
Meanwhile, the Metal and PSU Bank indices climbed 0.8% each in early trade.
Global cues
Asia-Pacific markets were mostly lower on Monday as traders assessed fresh Chinese manufacturing data and increasingly priced in the likelihood of a US Federal Reserve rate cut later this month.
According to the CME FedWatch Tool, markets are now assigning an 87.4 per cent probability to a rate cut at the Fed’s December 10 meeting.
China’s factory activity unexpectedly slipped back into contraction in November, with the RatingDog China General Manufacturing PMI by S&P Global easing to 49.9, below expectations of 50.5, as weak domestic demand persisted.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 1.6 per cent, while the broader Topix declined 0.86 per cent. In South Korea, the Kospi dropped 0.30 per cent and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was down 0.31 per cent.
US stock futures were steady in early Asian trade after a positive week on Wall Street. On Friday, in a shortened post-Thanksgiving session, the Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.65 per cent to 23,365.69, its fifth consecutive day of gains.
The S&P 500 rose 0.54 per cent to 6,849.09, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 289.30 points, or 0.61 per cent, to close at 47,716.42.
Osmond ChiaBusiness reporter
Getty ImagesSouth Korea’s largest online retailer, Coupang, has apologised for a massive data breach potentially involving nearly 34 million local customer accounts.
The country’s internet authority said that it is investigating the breach and that details from the millions of accounts have likely been exposed.
Coupang is often described as South Korea’s equivalent of Amazon.com. The breach marks the latest in a series of data leaks at major firms in the country, including its telecommunications giant, SK Telecom.
Coupang told the BBC it became aware of the unauthorised access of personal data of about 4,500 customer accounts on 18 November and immediately reported it to the authorities.
But later checks found that some 33.7 million customer accounts – all in South Korea – were likely exposed, said Coupang, adding that the breach is believed to have begun as early as June through a server based overseas.
The exposed data is limited to name, email address, phone number, shipping address and some order histories, Coupang said.
No credit card information or login credentials were leaked. Those details remain securely protected and no action is required from Coupang users at this point, the firm added.
The number of accounts affected by the incident represents more than half of South Korea’s roughly-52 million population.
Coupang, which is founded in South Korea and headquartered in the US, said recently that it had nearly 25 million active users.
Coupang apologised to its customers and warned them to stay alert to scams impersonating the company.
The firm did not give details on who is behind the breach.
South Korean media outlets reported on Sunday that a former Coupang employee from China was suspected of being behind the breach.
The authorities are assessing the scale of the breach as well as whether Coupang had broken any data protection safety rules, South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT said in a statement.
“As the breach involves the contact details and addresses of a large number of citizens, the Commission plans to conduct a swift investigation and impose strict sanctions if it finds a violation of the duty to implement safety measures under the Protection Act.”
The incident marks the latest in a series of breaches affecting major South Korean companies this year, despite the country’s reputation for stringent data privacy rules.
SK Telecom, South Korea’s largest mobile operator, was fined nearly $100m (£76m) over a data breach involving more than 20 million subscribers.
In September, Lotte Cards also said the data of nearly three million customers was leaked after a cyber-attack on the credit card firm.
Agency workers hired to cover Birmingham bin strikers will join them on picket lines on Monday, a union has said.
A rally will be held by Unite The Union at Smithfield Depot on Pershore Street, Birmingham, on Monday morning to mark the first day of strike action by agency refuse workers.
Unite said the Job & Talent agency workers had voted in favour of strike action “over bullying, harassment and the threat of blacklisting at the council’s refuse department two weeks ago”.
The union said the number of agency workers who will join the strike action is “growing daily”.
Strikes by directly-employed bin workers, which have been running since January, could continue beyond May’s local elections.
The directly-employed bin workers voted in favour of extending their industrial action mandate earlier this month.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Birmingham council will only resolve this dispute when it stops the appalling treatment of its workforce.
“Agency workers have now joined with directly-employed staff to stand up against the massive injustices done to them.
“Instead of wasting millions more of council taxpayers’ money fighting a dispute it could settle justly for a fraction of the cost, the council needs to return to talks with Unite and put forward a fair deal for all bin workers.
“Strikes will not end until it does.”
Stock Market Live Updates: Sensex, Nifty Hit Record Highs; Bank Nifty Climbs 60,000 For The First Time
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