President Donald Trump announced the platform on Sept. 30 while introducing a prescription drug pricing deal with Pfizer, which will be a participant in the site.
Pfizer said the company will “participate in a direct purchasing platform, TrumpRx.gov, that will allow U.S. patients to purchase medicines from Pfizer at a significant discount.”
The website supports Trump’s most-favored-nation prescription drug pricing policy, which aims to align drug prices in the United States with those paid by similar countries around the world.
Cutting Out Pharmacy Benefit Managers
Lawmakers and industry experts have long complained that high prices are driven, at least in part, by middlemen known as pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs).These companies negotiate prices on behalf of insurance companies, often getting big discounts on the list price. Those savings are not always passed on to consumers.
“PBMs wield market power that they can use to demand prices in excess of their costs of delivering services, and in turn, earn excessive profits,” Matthew Fiedler, a senior fellow at the Center on Health Policy of Brookings Institution, told the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health in February.
TrumpRx will allow patients to find a drug and purchase it from the manufacturer at a discounted price.
National Community Pharmacists Association CEO Douglas Hoey criticized the TrumpRx plan, saying it fails to address the central issue.
Prior Authorization Not Required
Delays in coverage or outright denials of payment for medication by insurance companies have been a consistent complaint among patients and physicians for years.These are often triggered by prior authorization, a process that insurance companies use to avoid unnecessary charges.
Providers are required to submit proof of medical necessity for some medications before the insurer will agree to cover them for a particular patient. If prior authorization is not requested or granted, the insurance company can deny payment.
Uninsured Patients Expected to Benefit Most
Patients with health insurance often have relatively low out-of-pocket costs for medications.That averages $11 to $116, depending on the type of medication.
Although uninsured patients are expected to benefit most from the TrumpRx website, Dr. Marty Makary, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said insured patients facing high drug costs can still benefit.
Connecting Patients With Drug Companies
TrumpRx will not sell medications. Instead, it will allow users to search for prescription drugs and connect them with a pharmaceutical company that sells directly to consumers.The announcement of TrumpRx has been followed by promises from several more drugmakers to lower prices by selling directly to U.S. consumers.
UK-based AstraZeneca announced on Oct. 10 that it will offer all of its primary care medications through TrumpRx. Drugs for lung diseases will be heavily discounted.
Eli Lilly has announced its own consumer sales site. Danish company Novo Nordisk intends to offer some medications directly to patients in partnership with telehealth services GoodRx, Hims & Hers, Ro, and LifeMD.
PhRMA, a lobbying group for U.S. pharmaceutical companies, announced a plan to launch in January its own site, AmericasMedicines.com, to help patients buy prescription drugs directly from manufacturers.







