Watch CBS News

White House launches TrumpRx discounted drug site

The Trump administration launched its new TrumpRx prescription drug listing site late Thursday, part of a push by President Trump to offer lower direct-to-consumer drug prices.

The president struck deals last year with more than a dozen drugmakers to list some of their medication on TrumpRx at steep discounts from list prices, with megacompanies like Pfizer and Novo Nordisk — known for weight loss and diabetes drugs Ozempic and Wegovy — signing on.

The site lists dozens of prescription drugs at reduced rates. For example, a four-week supply of Wegovy injection pens is listed at $199 for the first two months and $349 after that, well below the list price of $1,349.02. Novo Nordisk has offered Wegovy for similarly discounted prices through its NovoCare Pharmacy program in recent weeks.

A unit of Gonal-F, a common drug used as part of the in vitro fertilization (IVF) process, is listed on TrumpRx at $252, an 83% discount from the sticker price. Mr. Trump pledged on the campaign trail to ensure that fertility treatments are fully covered either by private insurance or the government.

The site does not sell drugs directly — instead, users are prompted to print out a gold-embossed coupon that it says can be used at pharmacies.

In a White House event Thursday evening, Mr. Trump called it "one of the most transformative health care initiatives of all time." The administration's Chief Design Officer Joe Gebbia, an Airbnb founder who helped design the site, said more drugs will be added to TrumpRx over time.

It's not clear how much of an impact TrumpRx will have on the prices most Americans pay for prescription drugs. 

Most people pay for their medication through insurance rather than out-of-pocket, so the discounts offered by TrumpRx may not change what they pay. The site notes: "If you have insurance, check your co-pay first—it may be even lower."

"The direct-to-patient stuff is, in my view, a sideshow and branding opportunity for Trump," Sean Sullivan, a health economist at the University of Washington, told CBS News last year. "Most patients have drug coverage. ... Very few are going to buy medications with cash, unless the drug is not a covered benefit, like weight loss or erectile dysfunction drugs."

But steeply discounted direct-to-consumer options could matter for uninsured Americans, people with high deductibles and patients whose medications aren't covered by their insurance — including some users of weight loss and IVF drugs.

"You should not be buying drugs anymore, going forward, without at least checking to see if those medications are available at these discounted prices," Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said Thursday.

Mr. Trump has pressed drugmakers for months to slash their prices.

Beyond TrumpRx, he has cut deals with several pharmaceutical companies to offer their drugs to Medicaid patients at most-favored-nation prices, meaning they cannot charge more than the prices paid by people in other high-income countries. The companies also agreed to offer most-favored-nation pricing for new drugs introduced in the U.S.

The fact that Americans tend to pay far higher drug prices than their European peers has long vexed members of both parties. For years, lawmakers have proposed capping U.S. drug prices or tying them to the prices paid in foreign countries, though pharmaceutical companies have typically pushed back, warning that price caps could make it harder to pay for research into new drugs.

"Americans have long been paying the highest drug prices anywhere in the world while other countries often paid pennies on the dollar for the exact same drugs," the president said Thursday. "We were essentially subsidizing the entire world."

Pharmaceutical companies routinely raise prices at the beginning of each year, and 2026 has been no exception, drug pricing experts told CBS News.

Manufacturers raised list prices of 947 brand-name drugs this January, while lowering prices on 20, according to drug pricing research nonprofit 46brooklyn. The list prices for brand-name drugs — which are like the sticker prices set by drugmakers before rebates or other discounts are negotiated — increased by a median of 4% so far in 2026, on par with last year's increase. 

The size of annual increases has fallen in the last decade amid public backlash over high drug costs, but last year's increases still outpaced the inflation rate.

Data from 46brooklyn does show that in a few cases, list prices for widely used drugs have fallen substantially. The list price of Eliquis, a blood thinner, plunged 43%, while Jardiance, used to treat Type 2 diabetes, fell 44%. Both drugs were among the first 10 medications selected for Medicare price negotiations through a Biden-era provision in the Inflation Reduction Act.

The Consumer Price Index for prescription drugs — which tracks transaction costs rather than list prices — has also risen 2% between December 2024 and December 2025. And since January 2025, when Mr. Trump was inaugurated for his second term, the index has declined by less than 1%. 

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue