CSL Limited (ASX:CSL) shares gained 1% to $173.36 in intraday trading as investors assessed new agreements with the Donald Trump-led US Administration that provide greater certainty around drug pricing and potential tariffs.
The biotech giant was among nine pharmaceutical companies named by the White House as signing up to Trump’s ‘most-favoured-nation’ (MFN) drug pricing framework.
Under an agreement with the US Department of Health and Human Services, CSL will provide medicines to the Medicaid program at prices comparable with those available in other developed countries.
The company has also agreed to apply similar pricing to newly launched therapies across all US payers.
Separately, CSL has reached an onshoring agreement with the US Department of Commerce linked to its US$1.5 billion manufacturing expansion in Kankakee, Illinois.
The investment, first announced in March, will increase CSL’s capacity to manufacture plasma-derived therapies in the US and provides the company with greater clarity around the Trump Administration’s push to encourage domestic pharmaceutical production.
Citi analysts Laura Sutcliffe and Abhishek Jain said close to 30 pharmaceutical companies had agreed MFN arrangements with the White House since 2025, although the detailed terms have generally not been disclosed.
They noted several major drugs, including Ozempic, Wegovy and Zepbound, had already appeared on TrumpRx beyond Medicaid, while CSL’s agreement was limited to Medicaid.
“Vaccines are excluded from the MFN pricing models and we think gene therapies likely go untouched,” Citi said.
“We are still not clear on what degree of protection plasma products receive. We see some of the Vifor portfolio (Mircera/Velphoro/Veltassa, about 47 per cent of Vifor’s FY26 sales; 7% of group topline) and non-plasma Behring products (Andembry/Idelvion, about 7 per cent of FY26 group top line) as likely impacted.”
The agreements reduce some of the policy uncertainty hanging over CSL, although analysts are still assessing the potential pricing exposure across parts of its non-plasma portfolio.