DES MOINES, Iowa — In May President Trump called on drug makers to lower their prices, and on Tuesday the first large pharmaceutical company gave in.

Pfizer and the Trump administration struck a deal to lower some costs of drugs to Medicaid patients. The agreement will result in a website called “TrumpRX”. 

As part of the deal, Pfizer will sell some of its primary care medicines on this new direct-to-consumer website. They say discounts will average 50-85%.

Access to pharmacies and affordability for medications has been a huge conversation here in Iowa, especially with the push of the pharmacy benefit manager reform law. 

The Iowa Pharmacy Association says parts of this new Trump-Pfizer deal look good on paper but they need to see how it actually plays out.

“Some of the good things, it does lower prescription drug costs on paper. So it looks as if the administration was able to negotiate lower drug prices for patients, for a select few Pfizer medications,” Iowa Pharmacy Association CEO Matthew Pitlick said. “The issues I could foresee is that we’re adding another step to an already complex health care system. We’re going direct-to-consumer. Now there’s this push to go direct-to-consumer, which bypasses a good health care team and a good health care system which keeps people healthy and having disjointed medications and disjointed health care. And eventually, while the prescription drugs lowered, maybe that increases health care costs on the back end because they went to the hospital.”

High costs of medicines has been a problem in the U.S. for a long time.

“People definitely can’t afford their medicines at all times during the year. We’ve had stories of people withholding certain medicine, rationing certain medicine. Maybe they’ll take half the dose of their insulin versus all the necessary things that they need for the month just to make it by,” he said. “Some families have to scrape some money together for the medicine, to go without food or make different choices. So it’s definitely happening.”

This deal also comes after President Trump threatened tariffs on drugs manufactured outside the U.S. This buys Pfizer a three-year grace period now for that. 

It’s not clear yet how many Pfizer drugs will be included in this agreement. 

“Pfizer is a very large company. They have several medications for a variety of different areas from autoimmune conditions like cancer medication, a wide variety of different areas that they provide medication for,” Pitlick said. “So could there be real cost savings as far as list price goes for those medications? Yes. However, if you do go through health insurance, you might see a lower price versus what you see as a cash price on this website. So just a caveat there. Just always try to shop around for the best price. But usually going to your local pharmacy, the people you have relationships with and your care team is the best possible solution.”

Pitlick also noted that TrumpRX, as it stands now, would just be brand-named Pfizer medications.

“There wouldn’t be generic medication on these websites. Those are already pretty fairly cheap and over 90% of the medications filled in this country are generic medications,” he said.