President Donald Trump makes an announcement from the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, Nov. 6, 2025.Jonathan Ernst | ReutersPresident Donald Trump on Thursday is slated to announce the launch of TrumpRx — a direct-to-consumer website that is key to his administration’s efforts to lower prescription drug costs in the U.S. In a post on X, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump and other administration officials will debut the website at 7 p.m. ET on Thursday. She said millions of Americans would save money through TrumpRx, but it’s still unclear if all patients — particularly those with insurance coverage — will see more cost savings from using that site to buy their medicines. TrumpRx targets people who are willing to pay with cash and forgo insurance, which suggests that people without or with limited coverage may benefit the most. The site is not expected to sell drugs directly to American patients, but will act as a central hub that points them to drugmakers that are offering discounts on certain products on their own direct-to-consumer sites. For example, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk have offered their blockbuster obesity drugs at hefty discounts to cash-paying patients. In recent months, both companies and at least 14 other drugmakers have negotiated agreements with the Trump administration to participate on the platform and voluntarily sell certain medicines at a discount to Medicaid patients. Those landmark deals are part of Trump’s broader “most favored nation” policy, which pushes to link U.S. drug prices to the lowest ones abroad.It is the government’s latest effort to try to rein in U.S. prescription drug prices, which are two to three times higher on average than those in other developed nations — and up to 10 times more than in certain countries, according to the Rand Corp., a public policy think tank.But TrumpRx “doesn’t seem like it is the only solution” to that issue for most Americans, said Juliette Cubanski, deputy director of the program on Medicare Policy at KFF, a health policy research organization. The cash-pay offerings could be better deals for patients without insurance, but it’s difficult to assess exactly how many people stand to benefit from TrumpRx, she added. “If they’re able to get a drug covered by their insurance at a relatively affordable copay, then there’s not a great upside to using the TrumpRx website,” Cubanski said. She said people with insurance coverage who buy through direct-to-consumer platforms may also not have their purchases count toward their benefits, which means it doesn’t help them meet their deductible or out-of-pocket maximum. But Cubanski said there’s potential for TrumpRx to be helpful in expanding access to certain drugs at more affordable prices, particularly medicines not covered widely by insurance in the U.S., such as obesity drugs. Medicare will start covering weight loss treatments for the first time later this year as part of the deals Lilly and Novo struck with Trump, but many employers are still hesitant to cover those drugs. Still, many of the other products expected to be listed on TrumpRx are already widely covered through insurance, and some are available as cheaper generics from competing drugmakers. Questions about savingsQuestions remain about how much savings people can expect if they buy their medicines at direct-to-consum …
