AILSA CHANG, HOST:
A centerpiece of President Trump's push to make prescription medications more affordable is a government website for drug discounts that carries his own name. TrumpRx launched in February. Seventeen drugmakers agreed to give discounts on some of their medications. NPR pharmaceuticals correspondent Sydney Lupkin joins us now to tell us how it's going so far. Hi, Sydney.
SYDNEY LUPKIN, BYLINE: Hello.
CHANG: Hello. OK, so are people actually using TrumpRx?
LUPKIN: Yeah, well, the site says it's saved more than $400 million for Americans, but I can't verify that. I asked the White House for more information about how many patients it helped and which drugs were the most popular but haven't gotten those answers yet. Ronnie Hauser (ph) is the senior vice president of policy and pharmacy affairs for the National Community Pharmacists Association. She told me what pharmacists around the country are telling her about TrumpRx.
RONNA HAUSER: I wouldn't say that it's extremely common, but we are hearing from our members. They are having patients here and there come in, you know, seeking to access the TrumpRx price.
LUPKIN: TrumpRx has 92 brand-name drugs with discounts on the site. Brand-name drugs are the ones people typically struggle to afford. These discounts came after the Trump administration threatened to impose tariffs on a group of 17 drugmakers to push them to lower their prices. The administration made a big show starting last fall of announcing agreements with them, and the pharmaceutical companies promised to sell brand-name medicines directly to consumers at a discount on TrumpRx.
CHANG: OK, you said 92 brand-name drugs. Can you just put that into context? Like, is that a lot of drugs?
LUPKIN: You know, it's more than when TrumpRx launched, but it's...
CHANG: OK.
LUPKIN: ...Actually just a sliver of those 17 companies' brand-name drugs. They make more than 800 brand-name drugs combined, so most of the drugs these companies make are not on TrumpRx. Here's what Dr. Ben Rome at Harvard Medical School had to say about that.
BEN ROME: It probably showcases that for most companies, in most cases, this is a little bit more for show - to show that they're engaging - than it is for, like, a genuine interest in selling all of their products via this mechanism.
LUPKIN: So even though Pfizer has more TrumpRx discounts than any other company that made a deal with the White House, that still leaves out more than a hundred Pfizer brand-name drugs.
CHANG: Interesting. What kinds of drugs were left out, then?
LUPKIN: Yeah, drugs such as Pfizer's Ibrance for advanced breast cancer, which, according to a recent government report, costs more than $15,000 a month out of pocket.
CHANG: Wow.
LUPKIN: Pfizer says it is - yeah - offering significant TrumpRx savings on a wide range of drugs and that the company will continue to make regular assessments about adding things as TrumpRx evolves. But two of the companies that made agreements with the Trump administration, Gilead and Regeneron, haven't added any drugs to TrumpRx yet. They say they'll add one drug each - Gilead's Epclusa for hepatitis C and Regeneron's Praluent for bad cholesterol. That would leave out Biktarvy, which is Gilead's HIV drug and its biggest-selling drug.
CHANG: So then, Sydney, who is TrumpRx helping exactly?
LUPKIN: Broadly speaking, TrumpRx is most useful for patients who need brand-name medicines that are not covered by their insurance. If you have insurance, your copay is likely going to be your best deal. But for brand-name drugs that are less commonly covered by health insurance, like obesity drugs and drugs for IVF, TrumpRx could save them money. Patients who need GLP-1s are getting the most use out of TrumpRx, and that's according to GoodRx, which is working with the administration. Patients picking up a TrumpRx drug at the pharmacy counter would typically use a coupon that GoodRx processes on the back end. TrumpRx also added hundreds of generics in the spring, but it's serving as more of a search tool for other discounts on Cost Plus Drugs, Amazon Pharmacy, local pharmacies. Consumers might find that helpful, but they can go to those sites directly too.
CHANG: That is NPR's Sydney Lupkin. Thank you, Sydney.
LUPKIN: You bet. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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