J&J jumps on the MFN pricing train
J&J chief executive Joaquin Duato.
Johnson & Johnson is the latest pharma group to agree a Most-Favoured Nation (MFN) drug pricing agreement with the Trump administration to avert the threat of tariffs.
In a statement, the company – thought to be the 15th to sign up to such a deal – said it will deliver improved access to medicines at lower costs. It also announced two additional manufacturing facilities that will be built in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, part of a planned $55 billion investment package in the US announced last year.
As with those involving other companies, it involves making its medicines available through the TrumpRx direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales channel, due to come online this month, part of a drive to bring medicine prices in the US into line with those paid in other developed nations.
"The joint agreement meets the requests laid out by President Trump to the industry and provides the company's pharmaceutical products an exemption from tariffs," J&J said in a statement.
Unlike some of the other company announcements, however, there are no details of the medicines that will be covered by the deal or the prices that will be charged. Participating in TrumpRx will allow millions of American patients to purchase J&J medicines at "significantly discounted rates," it added, while Medicaid will also have access to MFN prices.
Trump made reducing medicine prices in the US an early objective of his second term, and sent letters to 17 drugmakers in July ordering them to adopt an MFN model. Of those 17, only AbbVie and Regeneron are yet to reach an agreement.
J&J's new facility builds include a cell therapy manufacturing site in Pennsylvania and a drug product manufacturing facility in North Carolina, said J&J, which also said construction is progressing on a $2 billion biologics manufacturing facility in Wilson, North Carolina, which the company broke ground on last year and will support around 5,000 jobs during construction and 500 new positions when completed.
Last September, J&J also took control of a 160,000-plus sq ft unit at contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) Fujifilm Biotechnologies' new site in Holly Springs, North Carolina, that also has a $10 billion commitment over the next 10 years.
Additional US investment projects are expected to be announced later this year, according to the company.
J&J chief executive Joaquin Duato said the "agreement shows that when the public and private sectors work together towards shared goals, we can deliver real results for patients and the US economy."
