Sixteen of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies have struck “most-favoured nation” deals with the administration of United States President Donald Trump to cut drug prices for Americans in exchange for exemptions from US tariffs.
This is part of the government’s effort to reduce the high cost of medicines in the country, according to Reuters.
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The deals apply to medicines supplied through the government’s Medicaid programme and to drugs sold directly to consumers under a new platform, TrumpRx launched by the Trump administration.
New platform
According to Reuters, TrumpRx.gov is a website designed to help Americans access discounted prescription medicines.
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The website was launched on Thursday at a White House event attended by the Administrator of the Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Mehmet Oz, and Joe Gebbia, co-founder of Airbnb and Director of the National Design Studio.
“People are going to save a lot of money and be healthy,” Mr Trump said at the event, describing the platform as a major step in lowering drug prices.
TrumpRx is a central pillar of the administration’s plan to cut prescription drug costs, which remain significantly higher in the US than in other developed countries.
The website will be powered by prescription drug savings platform GoodRx. However, Reuters noted that TrumpRx will not sell medicines directly but will redirect users to partner websites where drugs can be purchased.
Drugmakers, medicines covered
Reuters reports that companies involved in the agreements include Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Merck and GSK.
Among the most notable deals are those involving Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, which agreed to reduce prices of popular weight-loss medicines known as GLP-1.
The US government said the agreements would cut average monthly prices of these drugs to between $149 and $350 for Americans.
Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly already sell some of their weight-loss medicines directly to consumers, accounting for more than 10 per cent of their total sales, the companies have said.
Chris Pernie, Novo Nordisk’s associate vice president for US public affairs, said the company is expanding access to its medicines.
“The launch of TrumpRx will further extend patients’ reach to Ozempic and Wegovy, including the newly approved Wegovy pill, at our self-pay prices,” Mr Pernie was quoted to have said in a statement.
Beyond weight-loss medicines, Reuters reports that drugs expected to be available through TrumpRx include Merck’s diabetes drug Januvia, Sanofi’s blood thinner Plavix, GSK’s asthma inhaler Advair Diskus, Amgen’s cholesterol drug Repatha and Gilead’s hepatitis C treatment Epclusa.
Pfizer said it launched its TrumpRx programme on Thursday and would offer more than 30 medicines at discounted prices.
The White House also said fertility medicines, including EMD Serono’s Gonal-F and Merck’s Cetrotide, would be included.
Questions over savings
While the White House has promoted the programme as a way to reduce drug costs, Reuters reports that it remains unclear how much consumers will actually save.
TrumpRx mainly targets people who buy medicines without insurance, meaning purchases made through the platform will not count toward insurance deductibles.
Juliette Cubanski, deputy director for Medicare policy at health policy organisation KFF, said the benefits for insured patients could be limited.
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“There is a real question about the value of this for people with insurance,” Ms Cubanski said.
“In some cases, we could be looking at out-of-pocket costs that are still relatively unaffordable for a lot of people.”
According to Reuters, US patients currently pay nearly three times more for prescription medicines than patients in other developed countries.
Ms Cubanski said drugmakers may still benefit from the initiative by selling medicines directly to consumers.
“Selling a drug at a discount is better than no sale at all,” she said, adding “this shouldn’t be mistaken for a concerted effort to deliver lower drug prices across the board to people in the United States.”
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