Senators urge additional review and transparency from HHS Inspector General prior to launch of TrumpRx
WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt.), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, recently joined U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in urging the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) to review serious questions about the operations of TrumpRx, a new direct-to-consumer (DTC) prescription drug purchasing platform the Trump Administration plans to launch soon.
In their letter, the Senators warn that without stricter safeguards before its official launch, TrumpRx could be used as a potential vehicle for unlawful kickback schemes that result in excessive costs for the federal government. The Senators also underscored how new guidance issued by the HHS OIG appears insufficient to curb potentially inappropriate conduct by pharmaceutical companies’ DTC platforms, which could use hand-picked telehealth companies to steer patients toward specific, high-cost medications and inflate Big Pharma’s profit margins.
The Senators’ letter comes after Senator Welch led six Senators in demanding transparency from HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on the scope, structure, and legal authority of the TrumpRx platform.
“We write to express concern with how the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General intends to conduct oversight of and apply the federal Anti-Kickback Statute to direct-to-consumer prescription drug sales by manufacturers. On January 27, 2026, HHS OIG published a guidance document just days before the White House plans to launch the ‘TrumpRx’ website, which will incorporate drug manufacturers’ DTC platforms. While HHS stated that the January 27 guidance document ‘clears [the] path’ for the TrumpRx website, we do not believe HHS OIG has adequately addressed whether TrumpRx and affiliated DTC platforms will be compliant with federal law, including the Anti-Kickback Statute. We believe the characteristics of the TrumpRx website require further HHS OIG review prior to launch of this government program,” wrote the Senators to HHS Inspector General T. March Bell.
The Senators further called out potential conflicts of interest related to TrumpRx, particularly that the President’s son, Donald Trump, Jr., sits on the board of BlinkRx—a company that could benefit from the Trump Administration pushing Americans to use DTC websites to purchase their prescriptions: “Considering the White House press conferences with drug manufacturers to tout participation in a website bearing the President’s name, the Trump Administration clearly wants to give the appearance of lowering prices for patients. But there appear to be possible conflicts of interest involved in the potential relationship between TrumpRx and an online dispensing company, BlinkRx, on whose Board the President’s son, Donald Trump, Jr., has sat since February 2025.”
In October 2024, Sens. Welch, Durbin, Warren, and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) demanded answers from the CEOs of Pfizer and Eli Lilly about the pharmaceutical companies’ recent move to establish new DTC telehealth platforms. Following that letter, in March 2025, the four Senators asked five telehealth companies that have held contracts with Pfizer and Eli Lilly about their financial relationships and possible influence on prescriptions for medications from those two pharmaceutical manufacturers. The four Senators released findings from their investigation in a 2025 report. The report found that in one instance, 100% of the patients routed to a virtual visit with one of Eli Lilly’s chosen telehealth companies received a prescription.
“Last year, we released a report on an investigation of Eli Lilly’s and Pfizer’s DTC platforms, and their use of hand-picked telehealth companies to steer patients toward their own specific, high-cost medications. We found that Eli Lilly and Pfizer spent up to $3 million combined for partnerships with telehealth companies, who funneled patients to the manufacturers’ products. In certain instances under these arrangements, the telehealth appointments were cursory and no physician laid eyes on the patient, patients could choose the drug they wanted, and virtual visits resulted in a high rate of prescriptions issued,” the Senators wrote. “If manufacturers continue to use affiliated telehealth companies for their DTC platforms under TrumpRx, it is not clear whether these prescriptions could be considered, “from an independent, third-party prescriber.”
The Senators urge HHS OIG to establish safeguards beyond current guidance to ensure TrumpRx is complies with existing federal law: “Given that oversight requests from Congress for information about the scope, structure, and legal authority underpinning the TrumpRx website have gone unanswered by HHS, and due to the lack of clarity with how HHS OIG will conduct oversight of a manufacturer’s DTC platform that is embedded in the TrumpRx website, we cannot be sure that TrumpRx will comply with existing federal laws. Because of the practices that some pharmaceutical manufacturers have used to advertise and steer patients, we believe additional safeguards and transparency are required for any ‘.gov’ website that will be promoted extensively by the White House and pharmaceutical manufacturers.”
The Senators pressed HHS OIG to ensure that TrumpRx complies with the guidelines set out by the agency and warned that—without proper oversight—the TrumpRx platform could create opportunity for potential fraud: “In 2022, the HHS OIG issued a Special Fraud Alert to notify health care practitioners of the specific risks of schemes involving telehealth platforms that ‘intentionally paid physicians … kickbacks to generate … prescriptions for medically unnecessary … medications, resulting in submission of fraudulent claims to Medicare.’ HHS OIG noted that fraudulent aspects of these arrangements for prescribers may include: limited interaction with the purported patient, limited opportunity to review the patient’s medical records, and/or a directive to prescribe a preselected item, regardless of clinical appropriateness. Manufacturer DTC platforms that may be linked to via TrumpRx appear to reflect many aspects of this 2022 warning for potential fraud.”
“TrumpRx could be used to steer patients to specific medications, potentially favoring one company’s medications over another, depending on concessions companies have made to the White House as part of the deals, which still have not been made public. How has the HHS OIG advised the White House and HHS to depict different companies or their medications on the website to avoid steering patients to particular drugs?” the Senators concluded.
Read and download the Senators’ full letter to HHS Inspector General Bell.
###