White House launches direct to consumer drug site

President Donald Trump is set to announce Thursday the launch of TrumpRx — a direct-to-consumer website that is key to his administration’s efforts to lower prescription drug costs in the United States.

In a post on X, White House press secretary Carolyn Leavitt said Trump and other administration officials will launch the new site at 7 p.m. ET on Thursday.

Millions of Americans will save money through TrumpRx, but it’s still unclear whether all patients — especially those with insurance coverage — will see more cost savings from using this site to buy their medications, she said. TrumpRx targets people who are willing to pay cash and forego insurance, suggesting that people who have no or limited coverage may benefit the most.

The site is not expected to sell drugs directly to American patients, but will serve as a central hub directing them to drugmakers who offer discounts on certain products on their direct-to-consumer sites. For example, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk It offered blockbuster obesity drugs at deep discounts to cash-paying patients.

In recent months, the two companies and at least 14 other pharmaceutical companies have negotiated agreements with the Trump administration to participate in the platform and voluntarily sell certain drugs at a discount to Medicaid patients. These historic deals are part of Trump’s broader “most favored nation” policy, which pushes to tie US drug prices to the lowest prices abroad.

It is the latest effort by the government to try to rein in prescription drug prices in the United States, which are two to three times higher on average than those in other developed countries — and up to 10 times higher than in some countries, according to the Rand Corporation, a public policy think tank.

In an exclusive interview with CNBC last week, Eli Lilly CEO Dave Rex said the company was the first drugmaker to sell obesity treatments directly to patients, and that TrumpRx is “taking that and expanding it across the industry” to include other drugs.

“We’re all for it,” Rex said.

There are still questions about how much savings people can expect if they use TrumpRx to buy their medications.

Announced reductions in the prices of some drugs were framed as sharp reductions from so-called retail list prices. For example, under Novo Nordisk’s agreement with management, diabetes drug Ozempic will be priced at $350 per month on TrumpRx, less than half of its roughly $1,000 monthly list price.

But those list prices are often much higher than what private insurers and government programs end up paying for the drugs after rebates, discounts and other perks, according to researchers at the Medicare Policy Initiative at Georgetown University. That suggests some payers may already be getting prices similar to or lower than the newly announced discounts on drugs under Trump’s deals.

The researchers cited one study that found that average discounts on brand-name drugs in Medicare Part D are about 40% of list price. Meanwhile, rebates in Medicaid exceed 75%, according to a study by the Congressional Budget Office.

The administration did not provide a complete list of medications that will be included in TrumpRx.

But available information from recent drug pricing deals suggests that several widely used drugs will be offered on the site at a discount:

• Ozimbek Diabetes shot, made by Novo Nordisk: $350 per month, up from about $1,000
• And goofy Obesity shot made by Novo Nordisk: $350 per month, up from about $1,350
• Wijovi pill For obesity, made by Novo Nordisk: $150 per month for initial doses
• zipbound Obesity injection, produced by Eli Lilly: $350 per month, up from $1,086.
• the truth For diabetes, made by Eli Lilly: $389 per month, down from about $1,000
• queen For migraine treatment, Eli Lilly: $299, down from about $764
• Repatha To lower cholesterol, made by Amgen: $239, down from $573
• Reyataz For HIV, made by Bristol Myers Squibb: $217, down from $1,449
• Januvia For diabetes, made Merck: $100, down from $330
• Epclusa For hepatitis C, produced by Gilead: $2,425, down from $24,920
• Gentadueto For diabetes, from Boehringer Ingelheim: $55, up from $525
• Zofluza For influenza, made by Genentech: $50, down from $168
• Advair Discus Inhaler 500/50made by GlaxoSmithKline: $89, down from $265
• Mayzent For multiple sclerosis, by Novartis: $1,137, down from $9,987
• Plavixmade by Sanofi: $16, down from $756

In an interview with CNBC at a conference in January, Bristol-Myers Squibb CEO Chris Boerner said the company has several products on its existing direct-to-consumer platform, which first offered a cash-out discount on its blood thinning product Eliquis. He said that this platform will be linked to TrumpRx.

Boerner added that the company will consider ways to put additional products in its portfolio on its own platform “where it makes sense.” He said Bristol-Myers was “in cahoots with the administration” on the issue of the U.S. health care system being too complex, and said too many intermediaries could drive up costs.

“What we love about this [direct-to-consumer models]“Where it makes sense from a business standpoint, are you able to circumvent some of that,” Boerner said.