President Trump on Thursday announced a deal with pharmaceutical giants Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly to expand coverage and substantially lower the cost of popular weight-loss and diabetes drugs, saving consumers and the government money.
“The agreement represents a historic reduction in prices for Americans on the two drugs with the highest annual expenditures in the United States,” the White House said.
Trump said that the companies have agreed to provide the drugs Wegovy and Zepbound as well as two obesity pills that are expected to be approved by regulators at “drastic discounts” to current prices.
“It’s a triumph for American patients that will save lives and improve the health of millions and millions of Americans,” Trump said. “Amazing thing.”
The medications, part of a wave of obesity-fighting GLP-1 receptor agonists — or, as Trump refers to them, fat drugs — have become wildly popular in recent years, but access has been limited because of their cost and limitations on insurance coverage.
The Trump administration says that the prices of Ozempic and Wegovy will be $350 when purchased directly from the manufacturers, without insurance, through TrumpRx.gov. That’s down from a current price of around $500 for patients who buy the drugs directly. Eli Lilly said it would make Zepbound available for $50 less than its current direct-to-consumer prices, dropping the cost to $299 for the lowest dose injectable pen and $449 for the highest dose.
Administration officials expect the average cost of the drugs to fall to $245 a month over the next two years.
If approved by the Food and Drug Administration, new pill forms of the drugs will cost $149 a month through TrumpRx.
Medicare has covered some GLP-1 drugs as treatments for type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, but not for weight loss. The prospect of having Medicare cover the medications specifically for weight loss had sparked concerns about spiraling costs to the government. The Biden administration had proposed a rule late last year that would have seen Medicare and Medicaid cover the drugs as weight-loss medications for obese patients, expanding access to several million more people, but the Trump administration scrapped that plan earlier this year.
Now, the Trump administration says that Medicare will start to cover Wegovy and Zepbound as obesity treatments next year. The Medicare price of Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound will be $245 a month, with copays for qualified Medicare beneficiaries of $50 a month
In exchange for their pricing commitments and plans to expand manufacturing in the United States, the companies will receive three-year exemptions from some tariffs.