WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) and U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Peter Welch (D-VT) today sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) raising serious questions about the operations of TrumpRx, a new direct-to-consumer (DTC) platform that the Trump Administration expects to launch this month.
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In their letter, the Senators underscored how new guidance issued by the HHS OIG appears insufficient to curb inappropriate conduct by pharmaceutical companies’ DTC platforms, which may rely on hand-picked telehealth companies to inappropriately steer patients toward specific, high-cost medications and inflate Big Pharma’s profit margins. As the Senators made clear, 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.
Earlier this week, HHS OIG released a guidance document that outlines parameters that DTC platforms should comply with in order to “minimize the risk of fraud and abuse under the federal Anti-Kickback Statute.” The guidance document was published just days before the White House plans to launch TrumpRx, but questions remain as to whether the unprecedented government platform that promotes Big Pharma’s profiteering will be held to these anti-fraud guidelines. In their letter, the Senators specifically call on HHS OIG to enhance oversight to ensure if TrumpRx complies with the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, which prohibits the willful payment of remuneration to induce patient referrals for Medicare or Medicaid-covered services or goods.
“We write to express concern with how the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) intends to conduct oversight of and apply the federal Anti-Kickback Statute to direct-to-consumer (DTC) 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,” the Senators began their letter.
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,” the Senators wrote.
In October 2024, Durbin led a letter to the CEOs of Pfizer and Eli Lilly demanding answers about the pharmaceutical companies’ recent move to establish new DTC telehealth platforms. Following that letter, in March 2025, Durbin then sent letters to five telehealth companies that have held contracts with Pfizer and Eli Lilly, inquiring about their financial relationships and possible influence on prescriptions for medications from those two pharmaceutical manufacturers. Durbin, Warren, Welch, and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) released findings from their investigation in a 2025 report. The report found, that in one instance, 100 percent 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.”
Continuing their letter, the Senators wrote that the tactics used by DTC telehealth platforms, which TrumpRx will also utilize, often directly stray from HHS OIG’s guidance.
“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 wrote.
The Senators concluded their letter by pressing HHS OIG to ensure that TrumpRx complies with the guidelines set out by the agency. The Senators highlighted the HHS OIG’s Special Fraud Alert in 2022 that warned of kickback schemes on telehealth platforms that pushed health care providers to unnecessarily prescribe medications in order to enrich pharmaceutical companies, which can lead to fraudulent Medicare claims. The Senators warned that, without proper oversight, the TrumpRx platform could offer Big Pharma a new avenue to run such fraudulent schemes.
“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,” the Senators wrote.
“Will the TrumpRx website vet manufacturers’ DTC arrangements with telehealth companies to ensure consistency with the 2022 Special Fraud Alert?” the Senators asked. “How will the HHS OIG evaluate and ensure compliance with the provision in the January 27 guidance document—that an individual has a valid prescription from an independent, third-party prescriber—in light of the identified risk of telehealth fraud?”
The Senators then called for greater transparency as the White House has left the public in the dark about the details of the Trump Adminsitration’s deals with Big Pharma that will allow the drug companies to sell their prescriptions directly to consumers through TrumpRx.
“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 their letter.
