By Bhanvi Satija and Michael Erman
March 18 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump pledged to make prescription drugs cheaper for Americans than anywhere in the world, but his TrumpRx.gov website is not delivering across the board lower prices than those paid in the United Kingdom, according to a Reuters comparison of publicly available prices.
The website, launched in January, is part of Trump's most-favored-nation deals with 16 drugmakers meant to reduce prescription drug costs to the lower prices
charged in other developed nations. The United Kingdom also struck a deal to avoid U.S. drug tariffs in exchange for spending more on medicines.
But prices offered for around a third of the 54 drugs available on the TrumpRx website were lower in the UK. Those include Pfizer's arthritis pill Xeljanz, AstraZeneca's diabetes drug Farxiga and GSK's inhalers for lung diseases, which were between 67% and 82% cheaper in the UK.
Trump has hailed the website as proof of his efforts to slash U.S. drug prices "from the highest... to the lowest" across the world, and said that some medicines are now "300% to 600%" cheaper, which is mathematically impossible.
Healthcare affordability is a key issue for the president as Republicans fight to retain control of Congress in November elections.
Wayne Winegarden, a medical economist at the right-leaning Pacific Research Institute think tank, said TrumpRx has only set a rough ceiling on what Americans paying cash might spend out of pocket rather than making medicines more affordable.
Winegarden described TrumpRx as "a big... really expensive coupon book," which offers a discounted rate or links to manufacturer-run websites where they can be purchased. It reflects direct-to-consumer cash prices, not what most Americans - who have private or government-sponsored insurance - actually pay.
Drugmakers have differed on the potential hit from most-favored-nation pricing. Some have said it would have no material impact on earnings, while Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk said sharply lower prices for obesity drugs would eat into profits.
White House spokesman Kush Desai defended the administration's effort. “No President has accomplished what President Trump has in the past year alone to lower prescription drug prices for American patients,” he said.
BIG SAVINGS ON WEIGHT-LOSS DRUGS
Reuters evaluated what pharmacies are paid for each prescription medicine by the UK government against the prices listed on TrumpRx from eight companies participating so far. These payouts are updated monthly by Britain's state-funded National Health Service.
The biggest savings are in the widely sought-after obesity drugs Zepbound from Eli Lilly and Novo's Wegovy. Both companies struck a deal with Trump in November to cut prices for the GLP-1 injections to between $149 and $350 a month on average for Americans, down from an initial list price of more than $1000 a month.
Fertility drugs, which like obesity medicines may not be covered by insurance, have also seen meaningful price cuts.
EMD Serono, the healthcare business of Germany's Merck KGaA, in the U.S. and Canada, said its TrumpRx pricing reflects U.S.-specific negotiations rather than international price comparisons.
The company said TrumpRx provides an 84% discount from list prices of its three U.S. fertility drugs, typically used together in an in vitro fertilization protocol.
Novo said U.S.–EU price comparisons often ignore differences in approved doses, uses and delivery devices, as well as the complexity of different healthcare systems.
Other drugs that already have generic competition, such as Pfizer's steroid Medrol and cholesterol treatment Lopid, are also cheaper than their branded counterparts overseas.
Americans with private insurance have out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs based on flat-fee copays or coinsurance based on a percentage of the cost of the treatment.
The UK's NHS sets prices it pays for medicines through a mix of cost-control agreements and other assessments. In England, patients pay a standard prescription charge of 9.90 pounds ($13.19) for each medicine, unless exempt. Prescriptions are free in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Aaron Kesselheim, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, said the TrumpRx website and most-favored-nation deals are voluntary with no enforcement measures and do not broadly address the policy issues that lead to high prices.
"I'm not surprised that the end result is something that is not workable for the vast, vast majority of patients," Kesselheim said.
MIXED IMPACT FOR DRUGMAKERS
The deals are expected to be a mixed bag for drugmakers' profits. Swiss drugmakers Novartis and Roche have said it would be immaterial.
Novo warned sales and profit could drop as much as 13% in 2026, hurt in part by the negotiated prices, while Johnson & Johnson sized its hit at "hundreds of millions of dollars."
BMO Capital Markets healthcare analyst Evan Seigerman said that is essentially a rounding error for a company like J&J, which had over $60 billion in pharmaceutical sales last year.
"A lot of the products you're seeing in the MFN deals are older products that are kind of at the end of their life cycle, there are other alternatives available," he said.
Philip Sclafani, life sciences head at PWC U.S., said the impact to drugmakers depends on how much of their sales come through government-sponsored programs versus commercial.
"Those that have more business in the government... they're seeing bigger impacts in general," he said.
($1 = 0.7505 pounds)
(Reporting by Bhanvi Satija in London and Michael Erman in New York; Editing by Caroline Humer and Bill Berkrot)
