Americans will soon be able buy some prescription drugs at discounted cash prices through TrumpRx, a new self-pay website launching Thursday as part of President Donald Trump’s broader push to lower drug prices.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a post on X that Trump will unveil the new website Thursday evening. The site will not sell drugs directly, but is expected to point buyers to drugmakers' own direct-to-consumer sites.
The administration has promoted the platform as a way to cut costs for patients — but experts say the biggest savings are likely to be limited to people who are uninsured or paying entirely out of pocket.
The cost of health care, including prescription drugs, is the top economic concern for most Americans, according to a recent poll by KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research group, with more than 4 in 10 voters saying it will have a “major impact” on their decision to vote in the midterm elections.
At least 16 drugmakers have negotiated agreements with the White House to participate on the platform. The discount prices are part of Trump’s broader effort to implement a “most favored nation” pricing model for prescription drugs, meaning that the U.S. pays no more than the lowest prices charged in other wealthy countries.
The White House has named a handful of drugs that will be included in its pricing agreements — including Merck’s diabetes drug Januvia, Amgen’s cholesterol-lowering drug Repatha and the weight loss drugs Wegovy and Zepbound — but the administration has not released a full list of medications that will be covered.
The deals have drawn widespread attention — and questions — because much remains unclear, including how long discounts will last and what the final deals with drugmakers look like.
The Trump administration has said it negotiated price cuts in exchange for tariff relief. Last month, the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Trump administration for failing to provide documents related to the deals.
Some of the discounts the administration announced are steep. The hepatitis C drug, Epclusa, for example, will cost $2,425 for people paying in cash through the site, down from $24,920.
Other drugs that have been named, however, aren’t among the costliest in the U.S., or they already come in generic versions that are typically cheaper for patients.
About 84% of the U.S. population has prescription drug coverage, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Most of the deals don’t affect what people with private insurance or Medicare pay for the drugs. People with Medicaid — who typically have minimal or no copays for medications — already pay very little.
“There’s no clear advantage for most people to use TrumpRx to purchase their medications,” said Juliette Cubanski, deputy director of the program on Medicare Policy at KFF.
That’s because, for most people — especially most with health insurance — “it would be hard for direct-to-consumer prices to beat the cost sharing amounts that they’ll pay using their insurance if they have coverage for drugs that are being sold through TrumpRx or other direct-to-consumer platforms,” Cubanski said.
What's more, what people with insurance spend through TrumpRx may not count towards their insurance benefits, which means it doesn’t help them meet their deductible or out-of-pocket maximum.
Direct to consumer prescription drug platforms have become popular in recent years. In 2022, billionaire investor Mark Cuban launched Cost Plus Drugs, an online pharmacy focused on offering lower cost generic drugs. Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly — the makers of Wegovy and Zepbound, respectively — have also rolled out their own cash-pay websites that offer discounts off the drugs’ list prices.
Trump will be joined for the announcement by Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and Joe Gebbia, the director of the National Design Studio, a group that designs digital services for various government agencies.
As of early Thursday afternoon, the website had been changed to show a countdown to the 7 p.m. ET launch.
