Add Johnson & Johnson to the list of biopharma giants that have struck most-favored-nation (MFN) drug pricing deals with the Trump administration.
With the agreement—which frees J&J up from tariffs on imported products—the company will offer some of its drugs at lower prices through the government’s direct-to-consumer platform, TrumpRx.gov.
The New Jersey company did not specify which products would be included or how much they would be discounted, other than to say they would be available at prices that were “comparable” to other developed countries. The same standard applies to medicines J&J will provide through the Medicaid program, it said.
Along with the deal, the company unveiled plans to build a cell therapy plant in Pennsylvania and a drug product manufacturing facility in North Carolina.
J&J did not reveal the exact location of these facilities or how much it plans to spend on their construction. The sites do, however, fall under the company’s commitment to invest $55 billion in bolstering its U.S. manufacturing, R&D and medtech capabilities by early 2029.
“Today’s agreement shows that when the public and private sectors work together towards shared goals, we can deliver real results for patients and the U.S. economy,” Joaquin Duato, the CEO of J&J, said in a release.
J&J’s deal comes three weeks after President Donald Trump announced similar arrangements with nine other pharma majors: Amgen, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Gilead, GSK, Merck, Novartis, Roche’s Genentech and Sanofi. Earlier last year, AstraZeneca, Merck KGaA’s EMD Serono, Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk also struck MFN deals with the administration.
The agreements came after Trump sent letters to the leaders of 17 large drugmakers in July demanding that they match U.S. prices of their new drugs to the lowest prices offered in other developed nations, which underscores the idea of MFN pricing. The only companies who received letters that have yet to strike deals with the administration are AbbVie and Regeneron.
In March of last year, when J&J revealed its $55 billion U.S. investment pledge, it said that it would build three new manufacturing sites in addition to a $2 billion, 500,000-square foot facility under construction in Wilson, N.C. On Friday, the company said that it is “ramping up the hiring of advanced manufacturing employees to work at the facility,” which will eventually house 500 staffers.
Five months ago, J&J also revealed its plan to spend $2 billion over the next 10 years to operate a 160,000-square-foot manufacturing facility at Fujifilm Biotechnologies’ massive biomanufacturing campus in Holly Springs, N.C. J&J said on Friday that the commitment would create 120 jobs.
