White House launches direct access to consumer drug site

President Donald Trump announced the launch of TrumpRx on Thursday. TrumpRx is a direct-to-consumer website that is key to the administration’s efforts to reduce prescription drug costs in the United States.

The president said millions of Americans will be able to save money through this platform. But it remains to be seen whether all patients, especially those with insurance, will see more cost savings by using the site to purchase drugs than through existing methods. TrumpRx targets people who are willing to forgo insurance and pay cash, suggesting patients with no or limited coverage may benefit the most.

“We’re going to save a lot of money, and this is going to be very good for health care overall,” Trump said at a website launch event Thursday night.

Although the site does not sell drugs directly to U.S. patients, it serves as a central hub that connects patients with drug companies that offer discounts on certain products on their direct-to-consumer sites and provides discount coupons to take to the pharmacy. for example, Eli Lilly and novo nordisk Even before the price cuts President Trump touted Thursday, it was already offering its blockbuster obesity drug at a steep discount to patients who pay cash.

Clicking on the platform offer for Lilly’s popular Zepbound weight loss injection will send consumers to the company’s LillyDirect platform, where they can order the treatment and submit prescription details.

In recent months, Lilly, Novo and at least 14 other drug companies on the platform have negotiated agreements with the Trump administration to voluntarily sell certain drugs at discounted prices to Medicaid patients. These landmark deals are part of President Trump’s broader “most-favored-nation” policy, which seeks to tie U.S. drug prices to the lowest prices overseas.

At launch, the site will only list medicines from the first five companies that have entered into price agreements with the government. AstraZenecaLilly, EMD Serono, Novo Nordisk, pfizeraccording to a White House fact sheet. The administration said other companies’ drugs will be added to the list “in the coming months.”

The platform is the government’s latest effort to control prescription drug prices in the U.S., which are on average two to three times higher than other developed countries and up to 10 times higher than in some countries, according to public policy think tank Rand Corporation.

But Juliet Cubansky, associate director of the Medicare policy program at KFF, a health care policy research institute, said TrumpRx “doesn’t seem like the only solution” to that problem for most Americans. He added that cash payments could be better for patients without insurance, but it’s difficult to assess exactly how many people will benefit from TrumpRx.

“If you can get a drug covered by insurance at a relatively affordable out-of-pocket cost, there is no significant advantage to using the TrumpRx website,” Cubansky said.

He said policyholders who purchase products through direct-to-consumer platforms also may not have their purchases counted toward their benefits, meaning they won’t help meet deductibles or out-of-pocket maximums.

But Cubansky said TrumpRx could help expand access to more affordable and certain medicines, especially those that are not widely covered by insurance in the United States, such as obesity drugs. Medicare is expected to begin covering weight-loss treatments for the first time later this year as part of Lilly & Novo’s deal with President Trump, but many employers remain hesitant to cover these treatments.

Still, many of the other products expected to appear on TrumpRx are already widely covered by insurance, and some are available as cheap generic drugs from competing drug companies.

Questions remain about how much savings can be expected by purchasing medicines at direct-to-consumer prices.

The announced price reductions for certain medicines are structured as significant reductions from the so-called retail suggested prices. For example, under Novo Nordisk’s agreement with the administration, some doses of the company’s diabetes drug Ozempic will be sold on TrumpRx for $350 a month, less than half the list price of about $1,000 a month.

But these list prices are often much higher than what private insurers and government programs ultimately pay for the drug, with rebates, discounts and other concessions, according to researchers at Georgetown’s Medicare Policy Initiative. This suggests that some payers may already have secured prices that are equal to or lower than the newly announced drug discounts under the deal with President Trump.

Georgetown researchers cited a study that found the average discount for brand-name drugs under Medicare Part D was about 40% of list price. Meanwhile, the discount rate for Medicaid is over 75%, according to a study by the Congressional Budget Office.

In the private sector, “insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers negotiate lower prices, and insurance benefits are designed so that people benefit from those price negotiations,” KFF’s Cubansky said.

“My guess is that for most drugs, at least most branded drugs, you’re likely to get a better deal with insurance than if you were to buy the drug through a direct-to-consumer website,” she said.

To launch the site, the administration listed a range of major drugs available at discounted prices, with an emphasis on the most popular GLP-1 products.

Ozempic Injection for Diabetes by Novo Nordisk: From about $1,000 to $199 per month WeGoBe Injection for Bariatrics by Novo Nordisk: From about $1,350 to about $199 per month WeGoBe Pill for Obesity by Novo Nordisk: Starting dose is $149 per month Zepbound Injection for Obesity by Eli Lilly: From $299 to $1,086 per month discount from dollar

The White House also highlighted cash payment discounts for fertility drugs like EMD Serono’s Gonal F, which sold for $168.

Dozens of other drugs that companies had expected to be listed on the platform had not been registered as of Thursday night. These include leading treatments from companies such as: amgen, Merck and gileadamong others.

In an interview with CNBC at a conference in January, bristol myers squib CEO Chris Werner said the company has multiple products on its existing direct-to-consumer platform and first offered a cash discount on the blood thinner Eliquis. The platform will eventually link to TrumpRx.

Borner added that the company will consider ways to incorporate additional products into its portfolio on its own platform “where it makes sense.” He said Bristol-Myers is “aligned with the administration” on the issue of the U.S. health care system being too complex and that multiple intermediaries could increase costs.

“What we like about these (direct-to-consumer models) is that they make sense from a business perspective and we get around some of that,” Werner said.

Meanwhile, in an exclusive interview with CNBC last week, Eli Lilly CEO Dave Ricks said his company was the first drug company to sell an obesity drug directly to patients, and that TrumpRx is “extending that industry-wide” to other medicines.

“We’re all for it,” Ricks said.