President Donald Trump's "Most Favored Nation" drug plan is winning over a lot of pharma companies and consumers too, as the number of drug firms taking part continues to climb.
The drug discounts now agreed upon by Alcon, Astellas Pharma, BeOne Medicines, BridgeBio, CSL, Kyowa Kirin, Sun Pharma, Teva Pharmaceuticals and UCB will be offered through TrumpRX.
And those 9 companies are just the latest to sign up this week -- there are a total of 26 such companies that are taking part in the program.
TrumpRX is the website the Trump administration launched in February, offering discount drugs
Political analyst Denise Grace Gitsham says President Trump, with this plan, proves that "he wants us not to be paying any more for drugs than any other equally-developed, equally-situated country, and that, to me, speaks to the ways the president is always trying to put America first."
He's saying to the pharma companies, "you only get access to our markets if you give us access the way you give access to other countries.
“For decades, Americans paid the highest drug prices anywhere in the world by far,” Trump said at a press conference on Tuesday, announcing the latest companies who've signed up for the plan.
“We now pay the lowest price paid by other countries anywhere in the world,” he said as the plan ufolds..
And Denise Gitsham points out that TrumpRX arrangement doesn't just cover existing drugs, "not just for the drugs we know about that we use all the time, but it's also for future innovations that they come up with.
"So actually it's now 26 pharmaceutical companies that have signed on to the MFN (Most Favored Nation) plan with President Trump, and it actually covers 89-percent of the branded drug market," she adds.
The president, meanwhile, says he expects more drug companies to sign up too.
"The other 10% are also coming in," Trump said.
"They have no choice."