Trump Pushes Drug Price Cuts but Impact on Patients Remains Limited

President Trump has announced, negotiated or proposed several initiatives to curb pharmaceutical industry excesses since starting his second term.

A recent KFF poll found that 60 percent of American adults worry about affording prescription drugs for themselves or their families. More than 80 percent call drug prices unreasonable, and most back more regulation to cut costs. Americans pay roughly three times what people in other countries do for the same drugs.

Last July, Trump sent letters to 17 drugmakers asking them to voluntarily reduce prices. He later said he met one-on-one with more than a dozen pharmaceutical executives at the White House. In December, he claimed to have secured their agreement to most favored nation pricing for Medicaid, the program for low-income Americans.

Trump then launched TrumpRx, a website for cash-paying patients to buy discounted medicines. He also pledged to accelerate biosimilar approvals, the generic versions of high-cost specialty drugs, by easing FDA requirements.

The reach of these efforts stays unclear. Details on the negotiations and covered drugs remain vague, falling short of initial promises.

White House spokesperson Kush Desai did not respond to questions about TrumpRx.

Medicaid already secures deep drug discounts. Other patients often fare better with commercial discount programs that cover more products or through insurance and drugmaker copayment cards.

Few Americans stand to gain from the new options, though some may save money.

"If it makes a difference to any patient, it's a win," said Mark Cuban, a billionaire investor working to lower drug prices. He noted TrumpRx discounts on branded fertility drugs and GLP-1 weight loss drugs for uninsured patients or those without coverage. Cuban started Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Co., or Cost Plus Drugs, in 2022. It sells drugs at low prices by buying directly from factories and skipping middlemen. Most of its offerings are generics.

Aaron Kesselheim, a Harvard Medical School medicine professor who studies drug prices, called the Trump announcements "one-off agreements made for publicity purposes. They don't change anything about the way drugs are priced."

"The agreements are opaque and unenforceable," he added.

Details were fuzzy, such as which drugs qualified for most favored nation prices and how the term was defined. Not all drugs qualified.

A consulting firm and data project called 46brooklyn, which tracks brand-name drug prices, reported nearly 1,000 brand drugs raised prices in January 2026. The firm said 2025 saw the highest number of list price increases on record. "This is not a material change, it's business as usual," said co-founder Antonio Ciaccia.

In the first week of 2026, Pfizer increased list prices on 71 drugs by an average of 5 percent and cut the price of one by 9.8 percent, the data showed.

The biggest patient gain likely comes from the Trump administration's continuation of a Biden-era program: Medicare drug price negotiations for costly medicines. Discounts on the first 10 drugs, ranging from blood thinners to insulins to inflammatory disorder treatments, started Jan. 1. Some products saw cuts of more than 50 percent. The $6 billion in yearly savings helped cap Medicare Part D out-of-pocket spending at $2,000 for 2025 and later.

Negotiations covered 15 more high-cost drugs, including weight loss and cancer medicines, in 2025, with discounts effective next year. Another 15 high-cost drugs face negotiation this year. The 40 deals should save Medicare more than $20 billion annually.

Drug lobbyists have curbed some effects. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, for instance, excludes rare disease drugs from negotiations.

"This is historic because it's the first time the United States has negotiated prices, like every other developed country," Kesselheim said. "And guess what? Innovation didn't stop."

The discounts aid only Medicare enrollees. Trump initiatives help some others but remain narrow and require knowing how to use them.

Trump's meetings with drug company leaders produced televised deals with little patient impact. After meeting Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, for example, the company offered discounts on more than 30 drugs. Bourla called it "a win for American patients, a win for American leadership, and a win for Pfizer."

The discounts appear on TrumpRx, which provides GoodRx.com co-branded coupons for hundreds of medicines.

Pfizer tied the deal to its most favored nation agreement with the U.S. government. Spokesperson Steven Danehy pointed to a September press release saying TrumpRx.gov offers savings up to 85 percent.

The list mostly features brand-name drugs that compete with cheaper generics. TrumpRx lists cholesterol drug Colestid at 50 percent off, or $127.91. Generics cost about $17 on Cost Plus.

Branded companies make no real sacrifice on these sales, said Sean Tu, a University of Alabama patent law expert. "That's a sale they would not have made if not for TrumpRx."

Other drugs are outdated, like Pfizer's 5-milligram hydrocortisone brand Cortef at $45 on TrumpRx, half its $91.80 list price but cheaper on Cost Plus. Some, like $607.20 HIV drug Viracept, work only with undiscounted companions.

Last week, TrumpRx added Amgen's Humira, long the top-selling drug worldwide, at $950 a dose versus nearly $7,000 list. Humira lost patent protection in 2023, and biosimilars now sell as low as $207.60 a dose on the site.

Cash-only arthritis drug Xeljanz fell from $2,277 to $1,518 monthly on TrumpRx but stays pricey for most.

Launched Feb. 6, TrumpRx mainly lists Pfizer's 30 drugs out of about 85 total, plus a few headline-grabbing discounts.

These include three EMD Serono fertility drugs, a Merck KGaA subsidiary. The priciest, Gonal-F, lists at $966 but costs $168 per IVF cycle with a TrumpRx coupon.

The savings total thousands of dollars, though drugs make up just part of fertility treatment costs, which run $15,000 to $25,000 per cycle. Women often need two or three cycles. American Society for Reproductive Medicine spokesperson Sean Tipton said TrumpRx cuts could trim a cycle's cost by about 10 percent. European cycles run about $3,000.

EMD Serono traded the price cuts for lifted tariffs on its overseas-made drugs and faster FDA approval for a European fertility medicine.

TrumpRx also offers Novo Nordisk's Wegovy, a GLP-1 drug for weight loss and diabetes, as low as $199 monthly for the pen. Many insurers cover it only for diabetes. Competitor Zepbound from Lilly & Co. lists at $299.

Novo and Lilly face pressure to cut U.S. GLP-1 prices. The compounds lost patents in India. Canadian generic Wegovy may launch this year at $73 monthly.

Dozens of U.S. patents block Wegovy generics until 2039, said University of California Law-San Francisco patent expert Robin Feldman. I-Mak reported on patent tactics that delay U.S. generics long after Europe and Canada get them.

Trump vows faster biosimilar approvals for competition and lower prices, but patents often pose the real barrier, not FDA nods. A generic Otezla for psoriatic arthritis won FDA approval in 2021 but waits until 2028 for market entry.