The news: The Trump administration recently met with leading retailers, including Amazon and Walmart, to explore ways in which more US consumers can get their prescription medications directly from pharma manufacturers, according to a Bloomberg report.

How we got here: President Trump and his top federal health officials are prioritizing lowering drug costs in the US. A “most-favored nation” executive order issued in May called for equalizing how much the US and other developed countries pay for prescription drugs, though details are scant while the pharma industry waits for next steps.

The order also instructed the HHS to develop a plan to help Americans buy their drugs directly from manufacturers, bypassing middlemen such as insurers and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs).

• PBMs negotiate medication prices with manufacturers and use their influence to take a big cut of a drug’s sales due to rebates and fees.
• Removing PBMs from the process, while having consumers pay most-favored nation pricing directly to pharma companies, could create needed transparency into drug pricing while driving down costs.

Zooming in on D2C pharma efforts: Drugmakers such as Eli Lilly, Pfizer, and Novo Nordisk have rolled out D2C online platforms over the past year-plus. They partner with telehealth providers who can prescribe the manufacturer’s products, with the aim of improving access to certain medications that often aren’t covered by insurance, such as weight loss drugs.

Yes, but: Most prescription drug spending is covered by insurance, even as more pharma players enter the D2C market.