White House's TrumpRx platform has arrived

 The Trump administration's long-promised direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales channel for medicines, TrumpRx, has finally gone live.

The website is central to Trump's efforts to reduce medicine prices in the US, but won't sell drugs directly to American consumers. Rather, it will serve as a hub that directs them to the various other DTC channels, operated by pharma companies and other groups that offer cash purchases of medicines at discounted prices.

Some drugs are available through coupon offers displayed on TrumpRx that need to be presented at a pharmacy, while others are only available at discounted prices through the manufacturer's website.

The White House said the site is launching with drugs made by the first five manufacturers to reach most-favoured nation (MFN) pricing deals with the Trump Administration – AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Merck/EMD Serono, Novo Nordisk, and Pfizer – with another 11 manufacturers due to follow in the coming months.

There are currently more than 40 medicines available through the website, mainly for chronic conditions like asthma, diabetes, and obesity, with the latter including Eli Lilly's Zepbound (tirzepatide) injection starting at $299 a month and Novo Nordisk's new Wegovy (semaglutide) pill for as little as $149 a month.

Telehealth company GoodRx said it is a "core integration partner" for TrumpRx, providing access to around 30 of Pfizer's medicines. Its platform is used by around 30 million people in the US and a million healthcare professionals.

What remains unclear is whether TrumpRx will save money for people with existing health insurance covering prescription medicines, although it looks like it has the potential to cut costs for people who are under- or uninsured, and those who need medicines not widely covered by insurance policies.

For now, the platform explicitly says it is open to cash-paying customers only, and early indications are that cash purchases may not count towards insured people's deductible or out-of-pocket maximum cost. If not, they may have to pay full price for other medicines, which could cancel out some of the savings. Meanwhile, some of the branded medicines also have cheaper generic alternatives available.

The National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) has previously expressed the concern that excluding pharmacists from the dispensing process could be unsafe, for example, by allowing people to source multiple medications at the same time that could be incompatible.

At a launch event, Trump said the platform is "one of the most transformative health care initiatives of all time," adding that millions of Americans "are going to save a lot of money and be healthy."

Questions have, however, been raised about the rise of DTC channels for cash-paying customers, particularly with regard to variable standards, screening protocols, clinical follow-up, data use, and integration with a patient's healthcare team.

https://pharmaphorum.com/news/white-houses-trumprx-platform-has-arrived