Miraya Gran and her husband took out a second mortgage and had a family fundraiser to be able to conceive their first child through in vitro fertilization in 2021. She still does not have insurance coverage for IVF, and despite having two embryos waiting to be implanted, she cannot afford the cost on her own to give her daughter a sibling. (Courtesy of Miraya Gran)

Miraya Gran is the kind of person who Republican President Donald Trump and his administration say they are going to help with new policies on in vitro fertilization.

It took a second mortgage on her Minnesota house and a family fundraiser to afford the IVF treatment she needed to have her first child in 2021. Gran’s husband has male-factor infertility, and she has a genetic blood disorder, making it extremely difficult for them to conceive on their own. But unless the cost of IVF goes down a lot, Gran can’t afford to give her daughter a sibling.

“I’ve got two embryos waiting for me, and I’m not accessing them due to lack of insurance coverage,” she said.

But Gran doesn’t have much hope left that IVF costs will drop enough after Trump’s announcement at the White House on Thursday, Oct. 16. The president said his administration negotiated steep discounts on a key fertility drug, as well as a new regulation allowing employers to offer IVF coverage as a standalone policy like dental or vision. EMD Serono, a major pharmaceutical brand, will offer the medication at an 84% discount via direct sales on a government webpage called TrumpRX, according to a company representative who spoke at the White House event.

Gran said that isn’t good enough. The drug prices are only a portion of what makes treatment expensive. One IVF cycle ranges between $12,000 and $25,000 on average but can cost more depending on medical needs. Many people require more than one round of IVF to get pregnant. 

Plus, the new policy only clears the way for employers to offer coverage options — it’s not required by the government.

“They have the ability to put the onus on insurance companies,” Gran said. “There really isn’t a solution for our community until we have insurance coverage.”  

Trump campaigned on a promise to make IVF treatment free for all, either through federal funding or insurance, but has so far not fulfilled that promise.

Dr. Eve Feinberg is an OB-GYN professor at Northwestern University, and a reproductive endocrinologist and fertility specialist who treats IVF patients every day. She said lowering the cost of the drugs is a positive step, but that’s only about one-third of the cost of a typical IVF cycle — less in some cases.

“For some patients, the medications can go as high as half the cost,” Feinberg said. “If you have a good reserve of eggs, you require less medication. If you have a lower reserve, you’ll need more. So for some, it’s $3,000 … and for some, it’s $10,000.”

‘Restorative reproductive medicine’ not a replacement for IVF, doctor says 

Trump’s promise to make IVF free is a difficult one to fulfill not only because of the overall cost but because of divisions among conservative groups about the ethics of the treatment. IVF requires the collection of as many eggs as possible that are then fertilized. Some are later destroyed because they would not make it after implantation in the uterus due to abnormalities or other medical factors.

The Alabama Supreme Court ruled in 2024 that embryos have the same legal rights as children, which threw the medical community into chaos and caused some Alabama IVF clinics to close. Later that year, the Southern Baptist Convention adopted an anti-IVF resolution stating the church’s opposition to the practice.

The ruling happened just as Latorya Beasley was waiting on a transfer date for the embryo she hoped would be her second child. Her clinic temporarily canceled appointments but eventually reopened, and she was able to have a second child. Beasley had IVF insurance through her employer, which only about 25% of companies with more than 200 employees offer nationwide, according to KFF. But there were still out-of-pocket costs.

“There was a point where we ran out of medicine for like one day, and we paid $1,000 out of pocket for that,” Beasley said. “And that was with insurance coverage.”

Feinberg said she was also worried about the aspects of the announcement that talked about “restorative reproductive medicine,” which is a newer field of medicine not recognized by the same medical boards guiding reproductive endocrinology. The practice has been promoted by the Heritage Foundation — a conservative advocacy organization that authored Project 2025 — as the “new frontier” of reproductive medicine.

“There were certain things said in the briefing that made me think the idea of fertility coverage, especially for companies whose beliefs and ideas are religiously focused and religiously based, that may mean offering restorative reproductive medicine and not offering IVF,” she said.

The restorative practice focuses on cycle tracking to conceive, as well as weight loss and nutrition. Feinberg said she had a patient who had been using those methods for four years with no success, and she was 43 by the time a reproductive specialist told her that her husband had such a low sperm count, there was no way they could conceive without medical intervention.

“He had a genetic mutation that the restorative reproductive medicine person was not trained to ever diagnose,” she said. “They could have and should have done IVF.”

Gran and Beasley said if the Trump administration put forward plans that made a real difference for families in need of IVF, they would be the first to celebrate it. But until then, the lack of action is frustrating.

“It just feels like I’m being sold a complete line from a traveling salesman, because until there’s actual substantiated change, I have no faith in what they say,” Gran said.

A lab tech uses equipment employed for in vitro fertilization. (Photo by Getty Images)

President Donald Trump said Thursday his administration had negotiated a lower price for a major fertility drug and would issue a regulation allowing employers to cover part of employees’ fertility coverage.

Pharmaceutical company EMD Serono will offer the popular in vitro fertilization drug Gonal-F at an 84% discount, Libby Horne, the company’s senior vice president of U.S. fertility & endocrinology, said in the Oval Office. 

The drug will be available on TrumpRX.com, a new website the White House has created to spotlight Trump’s work to reduce drug prices, Trump said.

The departments of Labor and Health and Human Services would issue guidance late Thursday, Trump said, to be followed by a regulation creating “a legal pathway for employers to offer fertility benefit packages” similar to vision or dental plans.

Sen. Katie Britt praised

The initiatives “are the boldest and most significant actions ever taken by any president to bring the miracle of life into more American homes,” Trump said. 

He credited U.S. Sen. Katie Britt, an Alabama Republican, for bringing the issue to his attention. 

“She’s the first one that told me about this,” he said. “I had not known too much about it, and we worked very rapidly together.”

Britt advocated for IVF after an Alabama Supreme Court ruling last year made the treatment illegal in the state. The state Legislature soon passed a law to ensure IVF remained legal.

At the Oval Office event Thursday, Britt offered high praise for Trump, saying he had prioritized the issue since the first time the pair spoke by phone.

“IVF is what makes the difference for so many families that are facing infertility,” she said. “The recommendations today that President Trump has set forth are going to expand IVF coverage to nearly a million more families, and they’re going to drive down cost significantly. Mr. President, this is the most pro-IVF thing that any president in the history of the United States of America has done.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. added that Trump was also “addressing the root causes” of infertility through a Make America Healthy Again agenda that seeks to avoid exposure to chemicals. 

Warren calls moves ‘broken promises’

Democratic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren minimized the announcements, saying they fell short of providing the free IVF coverage Trump had pledged to work toward. 

The Massachusetts Democrat added that private employers would likely not choose to offer fertility coverage and said other cuts to health coverage would more than offset any positives.

“Trump’s new genius plan is to rip away Americans’ health insurance and gut the CDC’s IVF team, then politely ask companies to add IVF coverage out of the goodness of their own hearts — with zero federal investment and no requirement for them to follow through,” she wrote on social media. “It’s insulting, and yet another one of Trump’s broken promises to American families.”

Trump, asked about potential opposition from religious conservatives who oppose IVF, said he was unconcerned. 

“This is very pro-life,” he said. “You can’t get more pro-life than this.”

Antitrust experts say the new administration’s hands-off approach to tech regulation could gain the president the loyalty of tech executives in the short term, but could hurt the competitiveness of the American tech sector in the long run. (Photo by hapabapa/Getty Images)

Leaders in the tech industry have enjoyed more freedom to make business moves and an overall deregulatory attitude under the Trump administration, but antitrust experts say the administration’s hands-off approach could end up hurting American companies’ ability to innovate and compete on a global scale.

Antitrust laws protect fair competition, ensuring that no one company controls an entire market, price gouges for their products or controls the cost of labor. In the short term, a lax approach to these laws could mean the American people may see more big tech companies merge or acquire smaller competitors. 

In the long-term, it means the already small group of people running the country’s most powerful tech firms would gain even more control of the market, Illinois-based legislative attorney Maaria Mozaffar said.

“Traditionally, innovation in tech is inspired by how we can solve problems. And if there’s fewer people that are not invested in solving problems, but more invested in making profit, the innovation’s intent is going to be different,” Mozaffar said. “We’re going to get a repetition of the same models and the same products that are not actually solving problems, but just a faster way to make money.”

Trump’s approach to the FTC

Though Democrats and Republicans may have had different “philosophies” for antitrust rules in the past, it’s unusual to see wide swings in attitudes from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), said New Jersey-based antitrust attorney Nadine Jones. 

The independent regulatory agency, which protects consumer interests and anti-competitive business practices like price-fixing, illegal mergers and monopolization, has historically run with little influence from the president, Jones said, though it technically is housed under the executive branch.  

But recent moves by the Trump administration suggest he wants a much more hands-on approach, Jones said. Before taking office, Trump chose Andrew Ferguson as the FTC chairman, replacing Lina Khan, who fought Big Tech overreach during her tenure. Together with antitrust specialist Mark Meador, the pair have focused on issues of “censorship” by big tech, arguing that tech platforms have unfairly restricted conservative views.

Earlier this year, Trump fired two Democratic commissioners from the FTC, a decision that was recently supported by the Supreme Court, and set a precedent that gives more executive branch control over the independent agency.

And in August, Trump revoked a Biden-era executive order that called for enforcement of antitrust laws to promote more competition within industries and keep companies from monopolizing. 

All of it points to a central theme of deregulation for the tech industry, with a goal of growing the industry with as little government involvement as possible. Trump’s alignments with big tech leaders during the 2024 election were probably the first clue that he’d handle the FTC differently, Jones said. 

“I think if I were to try to read the tea leaves in past administrations, currying favor with the president was of less importance,” Jones said. “The DOJ, antitrust division, the assistant attorney general of the division was who you wanted to curry favor with, or the chair of the FTC. Whether or not you’re smiling nicely with the president was, I think, of less significance, because they typically left these technical areas of law to the experts.”

For California-based tech founder and author Mark Weinstein, The FTC holds a critical role in upholding democracy and free market capitalism. Trump’s attempts to fill the commission with Republicans is a threat to both concepts, he said. 

“It’s concerning, even when he appoints people who are inclined to be strong antitrust enforcers, because they’re still appointed by the president,” Weinstein said. “There’s a quid-pro-quo that’s clearly inferred there.”

Weinstein thinks that before his second term, Trump realized the immense power that information giants like Meta and Apple had in controlling content and shaping public opinion. Deregulatory policies could curry favor with the leaders of Big Tech, and help him control information, Weinstein said.

“If Meta bans him from their platform, then they have all the power,” he said. “And he wants to have all the power.” 

With influence over large tech platforms, Mozaffar said, Trump is more capable of spreading his ideas around diversity, equity and inclusion and past “censorship” of conservatives.

“When you see the tech giants behind Donald Trump, people think it’s just about making them richer,” Mozaffar said. “It’s really [Trump’s] ability to have control over how those tech platforms do their business, as far as content control.”

What does this mean for American tech companies? 

So far, the FTC has been continuing antitrust lawsuits from previous administrations against some tech giants, like Google, which is currently awaiting a decision on a trial alleging it monopolized its search engine, after being found liable in a separate advertising-related trial in 2024.

The commission is also awaiting an outcome on a six-week trial in a case it brought against Meta, parent of Facebook, alleging in 2020 — under direction from the first Trump administration — that the company created a monopoly by acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp. 

Trump-appointed FTC commissioner Meador said at NYU’s Law Forum last month he believes most Americans support the scrutiny into big tech companies. 

“I don’t think this moment is a flash in the pan,” Meador said during the event. “I think that it is growing out of deeper sentiments and concerns about economic fairness and economic regulation and policy at a very broad level. And this is just one manifestation of it. I think that’s a generational thing. I think it’s only going to amplify. So, I don’t think it’s going away.”

But the current Trump administration has only brought one antitrust case against a tech merger, when it sued to block Hewlett Packard Enterprise from buying Juniper Networks for $14 billion earlier this year.

Trump is likely feeling out his options, Mozaffar said — he could fall in line with more traditional Republican action, aiming to enforce antitrust laws to promote competition. But he could also be using a framework FTC Chair Ferguson outlined, which criticises tech platform’s content moderation rules, as a way to rein in platforms that the GOP has long accused of censoring conservative viewpoints.

Mozaffar said she’s watching how the administration handles both horizontal and vertical mergers. Horizontal mergers, when two similar companies merge to create one company, are likely more familiar to the average American. But vertical mergers, which involve partnerships of companies across several layers of a supply chain, have the potential to have truly expansive power. 

One possible example is a recent $100 billion deal between AI giant OpenAI and computing powerhouse Nvidia. Nvidia’s investment into OpenAI includes the ability to build out its data center capacity and computing chip needs, tying the companies’ growth and success together. The deal immediately raised antitrust concerns. 

“How much control do you have over every piece of the process? To the point where there’s no innovation in product and competition leading up to that final product?” Mozaffar said.  “And then how much are you controlling as far as protecting labor rights and best practices, because you can always cut corners to be able to make sure that the final product serves the profit that it’s supposed to serve.” 

Amid conflicting federal antitrust cases, Jones advised corporate lawyers to pay attention to their state’s antitrust laws, as state attorneys general are some of the biggest enforcers of antitrust law in the country. 

She said although letting tech businesses operate unfettered may meet some of Trump’s short-term goals, a lack of enforcement will ultimately make the United States a less competitive, less innovative place. 

“Antitrust philosophy believes the only way to get genuine benefits for consumers, to get people to race to get to the finish line of your dollars — and you choosing them with your dollars — is to compete with each other,” Jones said.  “And then we, the consumers, enjoy the fruits of those competitions.”

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Pharmaceutical companies spent over $10.1 billion on drug advertising in 2024 with the top 10 drugs accounting for a third of spending. Over $5 billion of the spending was on TV ads, with the other half spent on radio, print, streaming and online ads.  

The advertising for these pharmaceutical companies made up 24.4% of evening ad minutes on news programs through ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and NBC between Jan. 1 and May 31 of this year. 

Drug company AbbVie spent the most, totaling over $1 billion on ads for Skyrizi and Rinvoq, which are used to treat inflammatory conditions. AbbVie increased spending on advertisements for Skyrizi by 150%.

Between 2023 and 2024, consumer advertising of the weight management drug Wegovy increased 330%. During that period, usage among teens increased 50%.

The U.S. is one of only two countries that allow direct pharmaceutical advertising.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• MediaRadar: Leading Prescription Brands by Media Spend
• Wisconsin Watch: Email from John Cassillo, head of analytics and trend reporting for Fabric Media
• Wall Street Journal: Senators Propose Ban on Drug Advertising to Consumers
• Fierce Pharma: The top 10 pharma drug ad spenders of 2024
• University of Michigan: Michigan Medicine: Young people are increasingly using Wegovy and Ozempic
• NBC News: Wegovy use among U.S. teens up 50% as obesity crisis worsens

Did drug companies spend $10 billion on consumer advertising in 2024, making up nearly 25% of evening ad minutes? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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