Take Ozempic. For the average patient in the U.S. paying out of pocket, the blockbuster diabetes drug can cost $349 to more than $1,000 a month. It\u2019s $349 through TrumpRx. Yet in several other wealthy countries, the next-highest price is $190 a month, according to KFF, a nonpartisan research group. <\/p>\n
Enbrel is an even starker example. A monthly supply of the rheumatoid arthritis drug costs $3,354 through TrumpRx, more than five times the $641 average in the other countries where researchers found prices.<\/p>\n
Some drugs, however, come out well ahead. Rydapt, a drug used to treat certain blood cancers, costs $2,909 for 56 capsules through TrumpRx \u2014 less than half the $5,901 price for the same amount in France, the next-cheapest country. <\/p>\n
Those disparities run throughout the site, according to the KFF analysis. The report, which didn\u2019t compare TrumpRx savings within the U.S., offers one of the first broad worldwide comparisons of Trump\u2019s drug pricing claims.<\/p>\n
The analysis looked at 32 brand-name drugs sold through TrumpRx that lacked generic or biosimilar equivalents. Researchers focused on those drugs because patients don\u2019t have the option of switching to cheaper versions, meaning the discounts offered through TrumpRx could have a greater impact on what they pay.<\/p>\n
The group compared the prices with those in 11 other wealthy countries, including Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The prices are current as of Aug. 26. <\/p>\n
The results were almost evenly split. For 17 of the drugs, the TrumpRx prices were lower than the average prices abroad. For 15, they were higher. But Trump has promised Americans the lowest prices in the world. By that measure, the results were less favorable: Only five were actually the lowest-priced, while 13 were the highest-priced. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of a mixed bag,\u201d said Juliette Cubanski, deputy director of the Medicare policy program at KFF, who co-authored the report. \u201cEven with the reductions that may have been agreed to by manufacturers who are listing their drugs on the TrumpRx website, the prices that they\u2019re offering, even at a discount, still continue to be higher than prices in comparable countries.\u201d<\/p>\n
Drug price discounts vary widely<\/p>\n
The findings offer an early look at both the promise and the limits of Trump\u2019s approach to lowering drug prices. <\/p>\n
Americans routinely pay more for prescription drugs than patients in other wealthy countries, even when the medications are made by the same companies. The TrumpRx discounts, the White House says, stem from Trump\u2019s \u201cmost favored nation<\/a>\u201d pricing deals, agreements with drugmakers to charge Americans the lower prices they offer other countries in exchange for tariff relief. But the discounts can vary widely, the analysis found, and they haven\u2019t consistently produced the lowest prices Trump promised.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not surprised by these findings,\u201d said Dr. Benjamin Rome, a primary care physician and health policy researcher at Harvard Medical School. \u201cAny of us who have been following drug prices realized, as soon as TrumpRx was launched, it was a limited number of drugs and it was clear that the prices that were there were not always going to be linked or in any way related to what the prices are in other countries.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a markedly different approach from the one taken by Trump\u2019s predecessor Joe Biden. <\/p>\n Rather than use Medicare\u2019s power to negotiate prices for a limited number of costly drugs each year, TrumpRx relies largely on voluntary agreements with individual drugmakers to offer discounted prices directly to consumers. (The exact details of the agreements remain largely confidential, and the White House has declined to disclose them.)<\/p>\n TrumpRx doesn\u2019t sell the drugs directly. For many drugs, it sends consumers to manufacturer programs through which they can obtain coupons or discounted cash prices without insurance. <\/p>\n That\u2019s not how most people get their prescription drugs. About 9 in 10 Americans have some form of health insurance<\/a>, meaning many pay for medications through private insurance, Medicare or Medicaid \u2014 although discounted cash-pay options have become increasingly popular as insurance has gotten more expensive. The money spent on TrumpRx doesn\u2019t count toward a patient\u2019s copay or deductible. <\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re highly selected products where the manufacturer is willing to offer a discount,\u201d Rome said. \u201cMaybe they\u2019re not the products causing the highest spending in the U.S. in some cases or are products where they were already offering confidential discounts, but now they\u2019re making those discounts more public.\u201d<\/p>\n