WASHINGTON — President Trump heralded his signature drug discount platform, TrumpRx, as “one of the most transformative health care initiatives of all time.”
But a month after its launch, few drugs are available, data about how much the site is being used remains unknown, and the private deals underlying TrumpRx are still being worked out.
The reality of the early days of the platform comes in sharp contrast to the soaring expectations set by the president, who cast a vision for unprecedented cuts to how much people pay for medications, pharmaceutical market experts and patient advocates said. The administration is making its efforts to reduce drug prices a key part of its midterm election case that it has made health care more affordable, despite cuts across America’s health systems, including historic reductions to Medicaid spending.
“Some are going to benefit, and others — probably the majority — won’t,” Michelle Long, senior policy manager for KFF’s Program on Patient and Consumer Protections, said of TrumpRx. “Is it the greatest thing in the health care world? Clearly no.”
In response to questions from STAT, administration officials declined to offer details on the number of new drugs expected to be added, when that may happen, or on how many people have used the site.
But they have continued touting it. “President Trump is DELIVERING,” Assistant Secretary for Health Brian Christine posted on social media on Tuesday, with a link to the site.
How many drugs will be added to TrumpRx — and when?
Concerns about the program fulfilling its huge promises cropped up immediately upon launch. Almost half the 43 drugs listed on TrumpRx were already available more cheaply as generics, a STAT analysis found. Plus, spending on TrumpRx typically doesn’t count toward insurance deductibles.
At launch, Joe Gebbia, the U.S. chief design officer who helped build the site, said the administration would add “more and more drugs, week over week.” A month later, the site has 44, a tiny slice of the 24,000 prescription drugs that federal regulators have approved.
And the agreements between the White House and drugmakers are still being finalized, according to financial disclosures from companies, months after Oval Office announcements celebrating the deals.
The relatively limited number of drugs caps TrumpRx’s impact on American patients.
“This is only a small number of prescription drugs available on TrumpRx,” Long said. “I think this is going to make a very small dent, if any, in terms of cost.”
Companies that struck deals with the administration, along with administration officials, are in the process of adding more drugs to the site, according to people familiar with the matter, but the timelines are uncertain.
Upon launching the site, a White House fact sheet said drugs would initially include those made by the first five companies to strike deals with the administration: AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, EMD Serono, Novo Nordisk, and Pfizer. Others would be added “in the coming months,” it said.
A spokesperson for Genentech, for example, said in a statement that the company “continues to work with the U.S. Government to list our influenza portfolio on TrumpRX.” And a spokesperson for Boehringer Ingelheim said the company “look[s] forward to Boehringer products being available soon.”
Among the companies with drugs on the site, the number of medications offered appears to be fewer than expected. Pfizer, for example, was expected to offer “virtually all” of its drugs at a discount on the platform, according to a White House chart presented at the announcement of the deal with the company.
Thirty of Pfizer’s hundreds of drugs sold in the U.S. are currently available on TrumpRx, and the company did not respond to questions about plans to add more.
“Right now, we have listed the large majority of our primary care treatments, and some select specialty brands at savings averaging 50% and as high as 85%,” a Pfizer spokesperson said in a statement. “We will make regular assessments and adjustments as the program evolves.”
The other companies that announced deals with the White House either did not respond to requests for comment or were noncommittal about when — or if — they would add more drugs to the website.
TrumpRx offers meaningful discounts on fertility drugs
Still, the Trump administration has worked to highlight the cases in which the discounts have made a measurable difference. The president invited the first patient who purchased medication via the website to his State of the Union address last month.
That person got an IVF drug through the site. The lower cash prices for those drugs are likely to help patients, Long said, because many pay outside of insurance coverage and there aren’t generic alternatives for those drugs.
“I took prescription drugs, a very big part of health care, from the highest price in the entire world to the lowest,” Trump told Congress at his address. “That’s a big achievement.”
The inclusion on TrumpRx of other drugs that have high cash prices and aren’t covered by insurance could also have a notable impact on certain populations, Long said, including some medications to treat cancer or HIV.
But the full impact of the program remains unknown. A poll last month from YouGov found just under a quarter of respondents said they would be somewhat or very likely to use the site. Mentioning Trump’s name in the polling made Democrats less interested — but boosted Republicans’ desire to use the site.
Administration officials have yet to release data about how many people are using the platform, despite promises to do so.
How many people are using TrumpRx?
On Feb. 17, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz said that the administration would be releasing specific numbers “over the next week,” touting the site’s “millions and millions of users, billions of searches, and hundreds of thousands of prescription coupons already doled out.”
CMS and White House officials did not respond to requests for comment about the future of the program or the number of people who have used it so far.
The site’s reach online is another signal of its limited impact. Software that provide Web traffic estimates are known for widely different results, but the trend of declining interest is clear.
Similarweb estimates 439,000 monthly visitors to TrumpRx, while Semrush has the number at 178,000. Glimpse, which measures Google search interest, reports 1.3 million searches for TrumpRx in the last 30 days, with a high of 569,000 on Feb. 6, right after TrumpRx’s launch. Searches now stand at about 11,000 a day over the last few weeks.
Still, other drugmakers are seeking to make deals with the administration to potentially have their products listed on TrumpRx, according to two people familiar with the efforts. White House officials have signaled their openness to new deals as well.
Last week, Kennedy touted the program as helping lower prices for patients paying with insurance and cash alike, a claim an HHS spokesperson doubled down on, saying the transparency of the new prices would have an impact across the market. Neither provided evidence that copays had dropped, and Long said she didn’t see how that would happen unless a drug isn’t covered by insurance.
“For several patients in our community, TrumpRx prices are the same or even higher than what they currently pay with insurance,” Merith Basey, executive director of Patients For Affordable Drugs, said in a statement to STAT. “While continued efforts to lower prescription drug prices are encouraged, this program’s design does not address the root cause of high drug costs in the U.S.: the monopolistic pricing strategies of the pharmaceutical industry that prioritize profits over patients.”
Trump is urging Congress to take further steps to lower drug prices, though it’s not clear that GOP lawmakers favor his approach, which would link U.S. drug prices to what European nations pay.
Several lobbyists representing drugmakers said they don’t see an immediate threat of lawmakers passing these price controls, even as their clients remain concerned about even a small possibility of price control legislation. Still, Republicans looking to hold onto their seats in Congress have promoted Trump’s health agenda as meaningful change in a health sector highly resistant to it.
At the same time, Democrats have pounced on what they say are TrumpRx’s failures. House Energy and Commerce Committee Democrats released a report last month titled “TrumpRx: Big Talk, Little Savings,” while Senate Democrats asked the Office of Inspector General at the federal health department to review the site over concerns about “inappropriate prescribing, conflicts of interest, and inadequate care.”
The Trump administration, though, shows no signs of pulling back. A banner at the top of TrumpRx reads: “We’re just getting started.”
Gary Marshall contributed reporting.
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