US 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 | fake images
President Donald Trump on Thursday announced two new efforts to expand the availability of in vitro fertilization, his administration's first concrete step in the costly and politically fraught procedure.
Trump reached an agreement with EMD Serono, a subsidiary of the German company merck KGaA, to reduce the price of some of the company's fertility drugs in exchange for relief from planned tariffs on pharmaceuticals imported into the United States, which 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 dental or vision coverage. It will allow employers to offer additional coverage at a fixed cost to patients and employers. But it's unclear how much the effort will increase coverage, since it doesn't require employers to participate.
At a news conference Thursday, Trump said the measures will lead to “many more beautiful American children.”
“We will dramatically cut the cost of IVF and treatment and many of the most common fertility drugs for countless millions of Americans,” Trump said. “Prices are dropping a lot.”
Merck Serono, the world's largest maker of fertility drugs, said it will sell its IVF therapies directly to patients and that people will be able to buy the drugs on Trump's direct-to-consumer shopping site, TrumpRx.gov. That site will launch in January 2026.
The medications include Gonal-f, a critical drug used in the injection protocol required for egg stimulation.
The plan comes as Trump works to control prescription drug costs in the US, signing deals with Pfizer and AstraZeneca in recent weeks that aim to facilitate Americans' access to certain medications.
Millions of babies have been born through IVF, which involves combining eggs and sperm in a laboratory to create an embryo for couples who are having difficulty conceiving. The decades-old procedure is an issue the president promised to address repeatedly during the election campaign, calling himself the “father of IVF” last fall.
The procedure is often not fully covered by insurance (if at all) and can cost around $20,000 or more per cycle. Currently, only a quarter of companies with more than 200 employees cover IVF. Some studies have shown that an IVF cycle in the United States costs 271% more than the average in 25 other countries.
Trump issued an executive order on IVF shortly after the president took office, promising to reduce costs and make the procedure more accessible. But that order did not provide specific details, other than promising to release a detailed report with recommendations on the issue by the end of May. That report has not been published.
The procedure became a flashpoint in the national showdown over abortion and reproductive rights in early 2024, when the Alabama Supreme Court said frozen embryos are children and those who destroy them can be held liable for wrongful death. In some cases, embryos may be discarded during IVF.
Trump quickly distanced himself from that ruling last year, urging the Alabama Legislature to protect access to IVF.
Americans generally support the procedure. An April 2024 Pew Research Center survey found that seven in 10 American adults say access to IVF is a good thing, with modest differences between most demographic and partisan groups.
