The Big Pharma manufacturer Pfizer will sell its drugs for lower prices to Medicaid patients, the company and the Trump administration reported Tuesday, and will sell drugs on a site named TrumpRX. The report was accompanied by Pfizer’s statement that it had won a delay in tariffs on its drug imports, according to news reports.
The new TrumpRX site, clearly trumpeting its allegiance to President Donald J. Trump, was a surprise to many when it was announced on Tuesday. Government involvement in drug sales or pricing has generally been limited to regulations from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Never before has the U.S. government directly sold prescription drugs, or been involved in a drugmaker’s sales.
Trump said the federal government would run the website, but few details were available — though early reports said the website would send people to a Pfizer site, or maybe to other manufacturers’ sites, starting at some point in 2026.
While the deal included a Pfizer commitment to sell drugs inexpensively to people on Medicaid, the government program for low-income Americans. Pfizer did not agree to cut costs for other Americans — on employer-sponsored plans, for instance, or Medicare, the government program for older and disabled Americans. Trump claimed credit for drug price cuts, nonetheless.
The new direct-to-consumer site is not likely to affect prices for many consumers, who typically get their medications paid for via insurance plans, rather than buying them on cash. Also, several other drug companies sell their medications direct to consumers, especially GLP medications for diabetes treatment and weight loss. What’s different here is that it will be called TrumpRX and run — somehow — by the government, according to news reports.
“Pfizer said in a news release that its direct to consumer sales would include widely used primary care drugs and some more expensive specialty medicines, offering them to patients at a discount as high as 85 percent off the sticker price and, on average, half off the sticker price,” The Times reported. “Using insurance, many patients already pay very little out of pocket for these drugs, so it is not clear how many patients would benefit.”
The announcement, coupled with Pfizer’s statement that it would be exempt from the administration’s pharmaceutical tariffs, created the impression of a quid pro quo — and also a showy press conference that has limited real effects for many people. Trump announced last week that he would impose 100 percent tariffs on certain imported brand-name medications, with some exemptions possible for those increasing U.S. drug production.
“Dr. Bourla said his company had been assured that it would receive a three-year grace period to avoid the tariffs because it is building and expanding factories in the United States,” The New York Times reported. “Pfizer already does some manufacturing in the United States, but also has significant production in Europe.”
“In a phone call with reporters later on Tuesday, senior administration officials said they had reached similar agreements with other drug manufacturers, but did not name them,” The Times reported.
It also came as the Trump administration is seeking to portray itself as the champion of lower health costs, while the issue of extending enhanced tax credits for Affordable Care Act health insurance has brought headlines about who is responsible for higher costs and the government shutdown.
Vaccine activists
Anti-vaccine activists were up in arms about the chummy press conference, which featured Bourla and a beaming Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Health and Human Services secretary who has been an anti-vaccine activist sinice well before he joined the administration. Pfizer was in the forefront of Covid vaccine development with its partner BioNTech, which has come under fire from “Make America Healthy Again” activists and their anti-vaccine allies.
“MAHA rallies call Pfizer a public health villain, but Trump is putting Pfizer logos on a government site called TrumpRx. The anti-pharma movement just went pro-pharma,” read one Tweet.
Another read: “Your black eyes match your black heart @realDonaldTrump. You are a predator and are complicit in the mass murder of millions with Operation Warp Speed and the COVID shots. You are no better than @JoeBiden and you BOTH should be arrested and tried for crimes against humanity. Shame on you. And shame on us America, for being such gullible chumps. Trump whores himself out to Pfizer AGAIN —–>”
