AstraZeneca has entered an agreement with the US government under which the company will have a three-year grace period for any tariffs resulting from an ongoing effort by the Trump Administration to impose pharmaceutical-industry specific tariffs. In return, AstraZeneca is proceeding with a previously announced plan to invest $50 billion in R&D and manufacturing in the US over the next five years. The agreement also includes drug-pricing adjustments in the US by the company for certain drugs. The news follows an announcement of a similar type of agreement that Pfizer and the US government announced late last month (September 2025).  

The groundwork for potential industry-specific tariffs was laid earlier this year (April 1, 2025), when the US Department of Commerce initiated an investigation to determine the effects on US national security of imports of pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical ingredients under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, as amended, which allows the President to impose import restrictions based on an investigation and affirmative determination by the US Department of Commerce that certain imports threaten to impair US national security. The evaluation and process for submitting that report and related action is still ongoing. 

If such industry tariffs were to be imposed, AstraZeneca reached an agreement with the US Department of Commerce to delay Section 232 tariffs on the company for three years, which the company says would enable it to fully onshore medicines manufacturing so that all of its medicines sold in the US are made in the US. This will be achieved through the company’s recently announced $50-billion investment in US medicines manufacturing and R&D over the next five years to help deliver on the company’s overall goal of achieving $80 billion in total revenue by 2030, 50% of which is expected to be generated in the US. 

With respect to some of its US-based projects, the company is proceeding with its largest single investment in a manufacturing facility to date by breaking ground earlier this month (October 2025) on a new manufacturing facility in Albemarle County, Virginia. This facility will support AstraZeneca’s weight management and metabolic drug portfolio and its antibody drug conjugate cancer pipeline. Additionally, a newly expanded manufacturing facility in Coppell, Texas, is officially scheduled to open this month (October 2025). The expansion project will double the production of Lokelma (sodium zirconium cyclosilicate), a drug for treating hyperkalemia (high levels of potassium in the blood). The Coppell facility is the sole global manufacturing facility of Lokelma to more than 50 countries around the world, including the US. In other US-based projects, AstraZeneca says it will open a cell-therapy manufacturing facility in Rockville, Maryland, early next year (2026) and its second major R&D center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, will open in late 2026. 

In addition, as part of an agreement with the US government with respect to drug pricing, AstraZeneca will provide direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales to eligible patients with prescriptions for chronic diseases at a discount of up to 80% off list prices. AstraZeneca will participate in the TrumpRx.gov direct purchasing platform, which will allow patients to purchase medicines at a reduced cash price from the company. 

Source: AstraZeneca and the White House