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President Trump and nine major pharmaceutical companies announced on Friday that they have reached an agreement to significantly reduce the prices of their drugs in government healthcare programs and for patients paying in cash. Pfizer, Gilead Sciences, Merck, and Roche's American subsidiary Genentech have all reached agreements. Novartis, Amgen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Sanofi, and GlaxoSmithKline have also joined. Under the agreement, pharmaceutical companies will lower the prices of most drugs sold to low-income patients in healthcare programs and promise "significant savings" on widely used medications. Trump has been pressuring pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices to the levels paid by patients in other countries. In July, Trump wrote a letter to the leaders of 17 major pharmaceutical companies urging them to provide "most favored nation" prices to healthcare programs and ensure that new drugs are not priced higher in the U.S. than in other wealthy countries. Five companies have already reached agreements with the government to control drug prices, while the remaining three companies that have not yet announced agreements are Regeneron, Johnson & Johnson, and AbbVie.