Trump announces efforts to expand access to IVF drugs

U.S. President Donald Trump makes an announcement in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC on October 16, 2025.

Andrew Caballero Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images

President Donald Trump announced two new efforts Thursday to expand the availability of in vitro fertilization. This is the first concrete step by his government regarding the expensive and politically problematic procedure.

Trump has struck a deal with EMD Serono, a subsidiary of Germany Merck KGaA to lower the prices of some of the company’s fertility drugs in exchange for relief from planned tariffs on drugs imported into the U.S. that Trump has not yet imposed.

The Trump administration will also issue guidance encouraging employers to offer fertility benefits directly to their employees, which would work similarly to vision or dental insurance. This allows employers to offer patients and employers additional insurance at a fixed cost. However, it is unclear to what extent the effort will increase coverage since employer participation is not required.

At a news conference Thursday, Trump said the moves would lead to “a lot more beautiful American children.”

“We will dramatically reduce the cost of IVF and treatment, as well as many of the most common fertility drugs, for untold millions of Americans,” Trump said. “Prices keep falling.”

EMD Serono, the world’s largest fertility drug maker, said it would sell its IVF therapies directly to patients and that people could buy the drugs on Trump’s direct purchasing site TrumpRx.gov. This website will be launched in January 2026.

The medications include Gonal-f, an important drug used in the egg stimulation injection protocol.

The plan comes as Trump works to rein in U.S. prescription drug costs and strikes deals Pfizer And AstraZeneca introduced in recent weeks aimed at making it easier for Americans to access certain medications.

Millions of babies have been born through IVF, which combines eggs and sperm in a laboratory to create an embryo for couples struggling to conceive. The decades-old procedure is a topic that the president repeatedly wanted to address during his campaign, calling himself the “father of IVF” last fall.

The procedure is often not fully covered – if at all – by insurance and can cost around $20,000 or more per cycle. Only a quarter of companies with more than 200 employees currently cover IVF. Some studies have shown that an IVF cycle in the US costs 271% more than the average in 25 other countries.

Shortly after the president took office, Trump issued an executive order on IVF, promising to reduce costs and make the procedure more accessible. However, this order did not contain any further details, apart from a commitment to submit a detailed report with recommendations on the matter by the end of May. This report has not been published.

The trial became a flashpoint in the nationwide conflict over abortion and reproductive rights in early 2024 when the Alabama Supreme Court declared that frozen embryos were children and those who destroyed them could be liable for wrongful death. In some cases, embryos may be discarded during IVF.

Trump quickly distanced himself from that decision last year and called on the Alabama Legislature to protect access to IVF.

The Americans generally support the procedure. An April 2024 Pew Research Center survey found that seven in 10 U.S. adults say access to IVF is a good thing, with slight differences across most demographic and partisan groups.